Kierkegaard, Søren (Søren Kierkegaard)

People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have. For example, the freedom of thought. Instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Anxiety is neither a category of necessity nor a category of freedom; it is entangled freedom, where freedom is not free in itself but entangled, not by necessity, but in itself.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. Therefore, whenever I see a fly settling, in the decisive moment, on the nose of such a person of affairs; or if he is spattered with mud from a carriage which drives past him in still greater haste; or the drawbridge opens up before him; or a tile falls down and knocks him dead, then I laugh heartily.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

When I was very young I forgot in the Trophonian cave how to laugh; but when I grew older and opened my eyes and contemplated the real world, I had to laugh, and have not ceased laughing, ever since.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

In addition to my numerous other acquaintances I have still one more intimate friend — my melancholy. In the midst of pleasure, in the midst of work, he beckons to me, calls me aside, even though I remain present bodily. My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had — no wonder that I return the love!
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Let others complain that the times are wicked. I complain that they are paltry; for they are without passion. The thoughts of men are thin and frail like lace, and they themselves are feeble like girl lace-makers. The thoughts of their hearts are too puny to be sinful. For a worm it might conceivably be regarded a sin to harbor thoughts such as theirs, not for a man who is formed in the image of God.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

People flock about the poet and say to him: do sing again; Which means, would that new sufferings tormented your soul, and: would that your lips stayed fashioned as before, for your cries would only terrify us, but your music is delightful. And the critics join them, saying: well done, thus must it be according to the laws of aesthetics. Why, to be sure, a critic resembles a poet as one pea another, the only difference being that he has no anguish in his heart and no music on his lips. Behold, therefore would I rather be a swineherd on Amager, and be understood by the swine than a poet, and misunderstood by men.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Responsibility is the choice of freedom and there is no contraception.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

What is a poet? An unhappy man who conceals profound anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so fashioned that when sighs and groans pass over them they sound like beautiful music.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

A strange thing happened to me in my dream. I was rapt into the Seventh Heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special dispensation I was granted the favor to have one wish. "Do you wish for youth," said Mercury, "or for beauty, or power, or a long life; or do you wish for the most beautiful woman, or any other of the many fine things we have in our treasure trove? Choose, but only one thing!" For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed the gods in this wise: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose one thing — that I may always have the laughs on my side." Not one god made answer, but all began to laugh. From this I concluded that my wish had been granted and thought that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste: for it would surely have been inappropriate to answer gravely: your wish has been granted.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

The specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly one you can never have.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Only robbers and gypsies say that one must never return where one has once been.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

The truth is a trap: you can not get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

This is the way I think the world will end — with general giggling by all the witty heads, who think it is a joke.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Man's essential idea is spirit, and we must not permit ourselves be confused by the fact that he is also able to walk on two legs.
-- 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

Times are different and different times have different requirements.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Man is not conscious of guilt because he sins, but sins because he is conscious of guilt.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Was it not your bliss that you could never love as much as you have been loved?
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Irony is a qualification of subjectivity.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. I am not a teacher, only a fellow student.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing, where am I, what is this called the world, who is that lured me here, how did I come into the world, why was I not consulted, oh I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

If it were the prerogative of love for it to love the extraordinary, then God would, so to speak, be in a tight spot, since for him there is nothing extraordinary.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness... they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion — and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion . . . while Truth again reverts to a new minority.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy fathoms of water still preserving my faith.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

I must find a truth that is true for me.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake?
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Not just in commerce but in ideas too our age is putting on a clearance sale. Everything can be had so cheap that I wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Don't forget to love yourself.

-- Søren Kierkegaard

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Once you label me you negate me.
-- Søren Kierkegaard