Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Soren Kierkegaard. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Soren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( SORR-ən KEER-kə-gard, also US: -gor; Danish: [ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌkɒˀ]; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. He was against literary critics who defined idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, and thought that Swedenborg, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, and Hans Christian Andersen were all "understood" far too quickly by "scholars".
Kierkegaard's theological work focuses on Christian ethics, the institution of the Church, the differences between purely objective proofs of Christianity, the infinite qualitative distinction between man and God, and the individual's subjective relationship to the God-Man Jesus the Christ, which came through faith. Much of his work deals with Christian love. He was extremely critical of the practice of Christianity as a state religion, primarily that of the Church of Denmark. His psychological work explored the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices.
Kierkegaard's early work was written under the various pseudonyms to present distinctive viewpoints that interact in complex dialogue. He explored particularly complex problems from different viewpoints, each under a different pseudonym. He wrote many Upbuilding Discourses under his own name and dedicated them to the "single individual" who might want to discover the meaning of his works. Notably, he wrote: "Science and scholarship want to teach that becoming objective is the way. Christianity teaches that the way is to become subjective, to become a subject." While scientists can learn about the world by observation, Kierkegaard emphatically denied that observation alone could reveal the inner workings of the world of the spirit.
Some of Kierkegaard's key ideas include the concept of "subjective and objective truths", the knight of faith, the recollection and repetition dichotomy, angst, the infinite qualitative distinction, faith as a passion, and the three stages on life's way. Kierkegaard wrote in Danish and the reception of his work was initially limited to Scandinavia, but by the turn of the 20th century his writings were translated into French, German, and other major European languages. By the mid-20th century, his thought exerted a substantial influence on philosophy, theology, and Western culture.
What, then, is depression? It is hysteria of the spirit.
The dread of sin can sometimes in effect drive a person into sin through dread.
Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it.
Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is united is passion, and faith is a passion.
My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.
The reward of the good man is to be allowed to worship in truth.
To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going on one's knees and thanking Him.
The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard, nor read about, nor seen, but, if one will, are to be lived.
Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!
What we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn themselves to the world.
For as the Good is only a single thing, so all ways lead to the Good, even the false ones: when the repentant one follows the same way back.
Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief,
but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief
that sustains thought and holds the world together.
My opinion is, of course, completely my own. I would not impose it on anyone else and decline any pressure to change it.
For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.
The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.
Leap of faith -- yes, but only after reflection.
The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.
Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.
To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one's self… And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one's self.
It has often been said that a reformation should begin with each man reforming himself.
No one may pride himself at being more than an individual, and no one despondently think that he is not an individual.
The truth is a trap: you cannot get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.
I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing.
What labels me, negates me.
It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.
It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.
There is a love, that blazes up and is forgotten; there is a love until death.
Christ has not only spoken to us by his life, but has also spoken for us by his death.
Beware false prophets come to you in wolf's clothing but inwardly are sheep.
On the secretly blushing cheek is reflected the glow of the heart.
Just as in the great moment of resignation one does not mediate but chooses, now the task is to gain proficiency in repeating the impassioned choice and, existing, to express it in existence.
Longer Version:
The crowd, in fact, is composed of individuals; it must therefore be in every man's power to become what he is, an individual. From becoming an individual no one, no one at all, is excluded, except he who excludes himself by becoming a crowd. To become a crowd, to collect a crowd about one, is on the contrary to affirm the distinctions of human life. The most well-meaning person who talks about these distinctions can easily offend an individual. But then it is not the crowd which possesses power, influence, repute, and mastery over men, but it is the invidious distinctions of human life which despotically ignore the single individual as the weak and impotent, which in a temporal and worldly interest ignore the eternal truth- the single individual.
The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself.
The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones.
Dread is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy.
What our age lacks is not reflection, but passion.
Boredom is the root of all evil -- the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.
There is peace and rest and comfort in sorrow.
If the ethical -- that is, social morality- is the highest ... then no categories are needed other than the Greek philosophical categories.
To be a woman is something so strange, so confusing and so complicated that only a woman could put up with it.
In the deepest sense, the being in a state of sin is the sin, the particular sins are not the continuation of sin, they are expressions of its continuation.
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.
Adversity not only draws people together, but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.
Are you not aware that there comes a midnight hour when everyone must unmask.
In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.
I go fishing for a thousand monsters in the depths of my own self.
There is a view of life which conceives that where the crowd is, there is also truth. There is another view of life which conceives that wherever there is a crowd, there is untruth.
The human race in the course of time has taken the liberty of softening and softening Christianity until at last we have contrived to make it exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament.
Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence; its giddiness, like that which comes from gazing down into an infinite abyss, is infinite.
A genius may perhaps be a century ahead of his age and hence stands there as a paradox, but in the end, the race will assimilate what was once a paradox, so it is no longer paradoxical.
Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
Longer Version:
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, who so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility.
It occurs to me that artists go forward by going backward, something which I have nothing against intrinsically when it is a reproduced retreat -- as is the case with the better artists.
It takes moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to rejoice.
The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes.
Most people live dejectedly in worldly joys or sorrows. They sit on the sidelines and do not join the dance.
Irony is a qualification of subjectivity.
Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard are featured in:
Happiness Quotes
Change Quotes
Courage Quotes
Cute Quotes
Depression Quotes
Hope Quotes
Humility Quotes
Inspirational Quotes
Life Quotes
Patience Quotes
Silence Quotes
Man Quotes