Søren Kierkegaard Quotes - Page 2

Hope is a passion for the possible.
Søren Kierkegaard
Theology sits rouged at the window and courts philosophy's favor, offering to sell her charms to it.
Søren Kierkegaard
I might be tempted to make to Christendom a proposal different from that of the Bible society. Let us collect all the New Testaments we have, let us bring them out to an open square or up to the summit of a mountain, and while we all kneel let one man speak to God thus: 'Take this book back again; we men, such as we now are, are not fit to go in for this sort of thing, it only makes us unhappy,' This is my proposal, that like those inhabitants in Gerasa we beseech Christ to depart from our borders. This would be an honest and human way of talking -- rather different from the disgusting hypocritical priestly fudge...
Søren Kierkegaard
Now, it is of course well known that Christ continually uses the expression 'imitators.' He never says that he asks for admirers, adoring admirers, adherents; and when he uses the expression 'follower' he always explains it in such a way that one perceives that 'imitators' is meant by it, that is not adherents of a teaching but imitators of a life....
Søren Kierkegaard
The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires.
Søren Kierkegaard
The reward of the good man is to be allowed to worship in truth.
Søren Kierkegaard
It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.
Søren Kierkegaard
It is comic that a mentally disordered man picks up any piece of granite and carries it around because he thinks it is money, and in the same way it is comic that Don Juan has 1,003 mistresses, for the number simply indicates that they have no value. Therefore, one should stay within one’s means in the use of the word "love".
Søren Kierkegaard
I shall be as willing as the next man to fall down in worship before the System, if only I can manage to set eyes on it. Hitherto I have had no success; and though I have young legs, I am almost weary from running back and forth... Once or twice I have been on the verge of bending the knee. But at the last moment, when I already had my handkerchief spread on the ground, to avoid soiling my trousers, and I made a trusting appeal to one of the initiated who stood by: "Tell me now sincerely, is it entirely finished; for if so I will kneel down before it, even at the risk of ruining a pair of trousers (for on account of the heavy traffic to and from the system, the road has become quite muddy)," - I always receive the same answer: "No, it is not yet quite finished." And so there was another postponement - of the system, and of my homage. System and finality are pretty much one and the same, so much so that if the system is not finished, there is no system.
Søren Kierkegaard
Come, sleep and death; you promise nothing, you hold everything.
Søren Kierkegaard
There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life’s highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.
Søren Kierkegaard
The majority of men in every generation, even those who, as it is described, devote themselves to thinking, live and die under the impression that life is simply a matter of understanding more and more, and that if it were granted to them to live longer, that life would continue to be one long continuous growth in understanding. How many of them ever experience the maturity of discovering that there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.
Søren Kierkegaard
Shows itself in the notion that what may be objectively true may in the mouth of certain people become false.
Søren Kierkegaard
Prayer is listening.
Søren Kierkegaard
I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it...but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill.
Søren Kierkegaard
...my soul always reverts to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There at least one feels that it's human beings talking. There people hate, people love, people murder their enemy and curse his descendants through all generations, there people sin.
Søren Kierkegaard
To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision
Søren Kierkegaard
Every individual, however original he may be, is still a child of God, of his age, of his nation, of his family and friends. Only thus is he truly himself. If in all this relativity he tries to be the absolute, then he becomes ridiculous.
Søren Kierkegaard
He who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all.
Søren Kierkegaard
Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!
Søren Kierkegaard
Satan's despair is absolute because Satan, as pure spirit, is pure consciousness, and for Satan (and all men in his predicament) every increase in consciousness is an increase in despair.
Søren Kierkegaard
With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness the more intense the despair.
Søren Kierkegaard
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.
Søren Kierkegaard
... he will seek vainly to the right and to the left and in the newspapers for a guarantee that he has actually been amused.For a sophisticated person, on the other hand, who is still unembarrassed enough to dare to be amused all by himself, who has enough self-confidence to know, without seeking advice from anyone else, whether he has been amused, farce will perhaps have a very special meaning, in that now with the spaciousness of abstraction and now with the presentation of a tangible actuality, it will affect his mood differently.He will, of course refrain from bringing a fixed and definite mood with him so that everything affects him in relation to that mood. He will have perfected his mood, in that he will be able to keep himself in a condition where no particular mood is present, but where all moods are possible.
Søren Kierkegaard
When indeed does the temporal suffering oppress a man most terribly? Is it not when it seems to him that it has no significance, that it neither secures nor gains anything for him? Is it not when the suffering, as the impatient man expresses it, is without meaning or purpose?
Søren Kierkegaard
The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
Søren Kierkegaard
A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way a human being is still not a self.... In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self.
Søren Kierkegaard
Everyone take his revenge on the world. My revenge consists in bearing my distress and anguish enclosed deeply within me while my laughter entertains everyone. If I see someone suffer I give him my sympathy, console him as best I can, and listen to him calmly when he assures me that I am fortunate. If only I can keep this up until the day I die I shall have had my revenge
Søren Kierkegaard
I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.
Søren Kierkegaard
I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.
Søren Kierkegaard
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
Søren Kierkegaard
By seeing the multitude of people around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs, by being wise to the ways of the world, such a person forgets himself, in a divine sense forgets his own name, dares not believe in himself, finds being himself too risky, finds it much easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, along with the crowd. Now this form of despair goes practically unnoticed in the world. Precisely by losing oneself in this way, such a person gains all that is required for a flawless performance in everyday life, yes, for making a great success out of life. Here there is no dragging of the feet, no difficulty with his self and its infinitizing, he is ground smooth as a pebble, as exchangeable as a coin of the realm. Far from anyone thinking him to be in despair, he is just what a human being ought to be. Naturally, the world has generally no understanding of what is truly horrifying.
Søren Kierkegaard
Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breath forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God
Søren Kierkegaard
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.
Søren Kierkegaard
For with his little secret that he cannot divulge, the poet buys this power of the word to tell everybody else's dark secrets. A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil.
Søren Kierkegaard
Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief,but it is belief that is the positive, it is beliefthat sustains thought and holds the world together.
Søren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
Søren Kierkegaard
Now she has power and passion and the struggle has significance for me-let the momentary consequences be what they may. Suppose that in her pride she becomes giddy, suppose that she does break with me-all right! -she has her freedom, but she will still belong to me. That the engagement should bind her is silly-I want to possess her only in her freedom
Søren Kierkegaard
So now begins the first war with Cordelia' in which I retreat and thereby teach her to be victorious as she pursues me. I continually fall back, and in this backward movement I teach her to know through me all the powers of erotic love, its turbulent thoughts' its passion, what longing is, and hope, and impatient expectancy. As I perform this set of steps before her' all this will correspondingly in her' It is a triumphant procession in which I am leading her, and I myself am just as much the one who dithyrambically sings praises to her victory as I am the one who shows the way. She will gain courage to believe in erotic love, to believe it is an etemal force, when she sees its dominion over me, sees my movements. She will believe me, partly because I rely on my artistry, and partly because at the bottom of what I am doing there is truth. If that were not the case, she would not believe me. With my every move, she becomes stronger and stronger; love is awakening in her soul; she is being enthroned in her meaning as a woman
Søren Kierkegaard
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.
Søren Kierkegaard
It costs a man just as much or even more to go to hell than to come to heaven. Narrow, exceedingly narrow is the way to perdition!
Søren Kierkegaard
In the end, therefore, money will be the one thing people will desire, which is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am saved...He would die with nothing to reproach himself with, and under the impression that if only he had had the money he might really have lived and might even have achieved something great.
Søren Kierkegaard
But we are curious about the result, just as we are curious about the way a book turns out. We do not want to know anything about the anxiety, the distress, the paradox. We carry on an esthetic flirtation with the result. It arrives just as unexpectedly but also just as effortlessly as a prize in a lottery, and when we have heard the result, we have built ourselves up.
Søren Kierkegaard
When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.
Søren Kierkegaard
The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.
Søren Kierkegaard
Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.
Søren Kierkegaard
Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.
Søren Kierkegaard
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Søren Kierkegaard
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Søren Kierkegaard
If someone who wanted to learn to dance were to say: For centuries, one generation after the other has learned the positions, and it is high time that I take advantage of this and promptly begin with the quadrille--people would presumably laugh a little at him, but in the world of spirit this is very plausible. What, then, is education? I believed it is the course the individual goes through in order to catch up with himself, and the person who will not go through this course is not much helped by being born in the most enlightened age.
Søren Kierkegaard
The more he needs God, the more deeply he comprehends he is in need of God, and then the more he in his need presses forward to God, the more perfect he is... To need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself.
Søren Kierkegaard
It takes a purely human courage to renounce the whole temporal realm in order to gain eternity, but this I do gain and in all eternity can never renounce—it is a self-contradiction. But it takes a paradoxical and humble courage to grasp the whole temporal realm now by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith.
Søren Kierkegaard
You are a hater of activity in life; quite right, for before there can be any meaning in activity, life must have continuity, and this your life lacks. You occupy yourself with your studies, that is true, you are even industrious. But it is only for your own sake and is done with as little teleology as possible. Otherwise you are unoccupied; like those workers in the Gospel, you stand idle in the marketplace (Matthew 20:3). You stick your hands in your pockets and observe life. Then you rest in despair, nothing occupies you, you don’t step aside for anything: “if someone were to throw a tile down from the roof I wouldn’t get out of the way.” You are like someone dying, you die daily, not in the profound, serious sense in which one usually takes that word, but life has lost its reality and “you always reckon your lifetime from one day’s notice to quit to the next”. You let everything pass you by, it makes no impression, but then suddenly something comes which grips you, an idea, a situation, a smile from a young girl, and then you are “in touch”; for just as on some occasions you are not in touch, so at others you are in touch and of service in every way. Wherever something is going on you are “in touch”. You conduct your life as it is your custom to behave in a crowd, you “work your way into the thickest of it, trying if possible to be forced up above the others so as to be able to lie on top of them”; if you manage to get up there you “make yourself as comfortable as possible”, and this is also the way you let yourself be carried along through life. But when the crowd disperses, when the event is over, you stand once more at the street corner and look at the world. A dying person possesses, as you know, a supernatural energy, and so too with you. If there is an idea to be thought through, a work to be read through, a plan to be carried out, a little adventure to be experienced - yes, a hat to be bought, you take hold of the matter with an immense energy. According to circumstance, you work on untiringly for a day, for a month; you are happy in the assurance that you still have the same abundance of strength as before, you take no rest, “no Satan can keep up with you”. If you work together with others, you work them into the ground. But then when the month or, what you always consider the maximum, the six months have gone, you break off and say, “and that’s the end of the story”. You retire and leave it all to the other party, or if you have been working alone you talk to no one about what you were doing. You then pretend to yourself and others that you have lost the desire and flatter yourself with the vain thought that you could have kept working with the same intensity if that is what you desired. But that is an immense deception. You would have succeeded in finishing it, as most others, if you had patiently willed it so, but you would have found out at the same time that it needs a kind of perseverance quite different from yours.
Søren Kierkegaard
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.
Søren Kierkegaard
Sitting calmly on a ship in fair weather is not a metaphor for having faith; but when the ship has sprung a leak, then enthusiastically to keep the ship afloat by pumping and not to seek the harbor--that is the metaphor for having faith. (Concluding Unscientific Postscript)
Søren Kierkegaard
to have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God.
Søren Kierkegaard
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in everygeneration may not come that far, but none comes further.
Søren Kierkegaard
What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement.
Søren Kierkegaard
A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret suffrings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music. People corwd around the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul.
Søren Kierkegaard
Once you are born in this world you’re old enough to die.
Søren Kierkegaard