Recently we had a faculty member who was looking for an attribution to a quote of Kierkegaard. We could find the quote in many places on the web, but couldn’t verify where it was coming from.
The quote was “There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn’t true, the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
Another translation says:”There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn’t so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so.
“Thanks to St. Olaf librarian Cynthia Lund for referring us to Kierkegaard scholar, Søren Landkildehus, for the answer: I can inform you that it is from Works of Love the very first deliberation on ‘Love’s hidden life and its recognisability.’
“The Hongs translate the Danish this way: ‘Indeed, one can be deceived in many ways; one can be deceived in believing what is untrue, but on the other hand, one is also deceived in not believing what is true;’ (Works of Love, 1962 Haper Perennial, p.23)”
“For good order this is the Danish original: ‘Man kan jo bedrages paa mange Maader; man kan bedrages ved at troe det Usande, men man bedrages dog vel ogsaa ved ikke at troe det Sande;’ (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger, SKS vol.9 Gad & Søren Kierkegaard Forskningscentret 2004 [1847], p.13)”
A pleasure to think about the subtleties of translation — and to be exposed to the quote.
great and good information