[Socrates] was and remained a midwife; not because he ‘lacked the positive’, but because he understood that this was the highest relationship one person could have to another. And in this he is eternally correct. Because even if there is ever given a divine point of departure, between one person and another this remains the true relationship, provided one reflects on the absolute and does not fool around with the contingent, but from the bottom of his heart renounces any understanding of the half-truth that seems to be man’s desire and the system’s secret.
— Kierkegaard, Philosophical Crumbs (tr. Piety)
Notes from a Room 