Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–55) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious thinker. A prolific and mischievously obscure author, he is the progenitor of 20th-century existential philosophy.
Born in Copenhagen to scholarly and pious parents, Kierkegaard inherited enough money to be financially independent for the rest of his life. In 1840, he got engaged to Regine Olsen; although the two were deeply in love, he started to have doubts that he could not make Regine happy and stay true to his aspirations of philosophy. After a period of severe dilemma, Kierkegaard broke off the engagement. From then on, he lived the life of a scholarly recluse.
Kierkegaard’s work spanned not just philosophy, but also theology, psychology, literary criticism, and fiction. He believed that man exists in isolation relating only to God and that an authentic individual must sometimes stand alone against the crowd. Kierkegaard also came up the concept of “subjectivity” or “objective uncertainty” (we perceive the world and the “truth” differently) and the idea of “leap of faith” (that faith is not possible without doubt—we must doubt the existence of God to have faith in the existence of God.)
Kierkegaard wrote intricate philosophical works, which were many-sided and seemingly contradictory. He published these works under pseudonyms with the intention that he would attack them himself later. His published works include Enten-Eller (1843; Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, 1944,) Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift (1846; Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, 1941,) and Sygdommen til Døden (1849, The Sickness unto Death, 1941.)
Kierkegaard was more or less unheard of outside of Denmark in the 19th century. However, in the early 20th century, European writers and philosophers rediscovered him. He influenced writers like Henrik Ibsen, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Soren Kierkegaard
Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life. He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Reflection, Suicide
Philosophy always requires something more, requires the eternal, the true, in contrast to which even the fullest existence as such is but a happy moment.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Philosophy, Science
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Faith
Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Personality
Don’t forget to love yourself.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Love
Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Laziness, Idleness
The commandment is that you shall love, but when you understand life and yourself, then it is as if you should not need to be commanded, because to love human beings is still the only thing worth living for; without this life you really do not live.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Love
Once you label me you negate me.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Identity, Names
I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Boredom, Bores
To stand on one leg and prove God’s existence is a very different thing from going down on one’s knees and thanking him.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Prayer, Gratitude
Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth—look at the dying man’s struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Enjoyment
The thinker without a paradox is like a lover without a feeling: a paltry mediocrity.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Thought
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Depression
Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Life
Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Ideas
When you read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, “It is talking to me, and about me.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Religion, Bible
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Self-Discovery
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Enjoyment
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Focus, Concentration
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Speech, Thought, Freedom, People, Thinking
People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Tourism, Travel
The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Tyranny, Perspective
Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.
—Soren Kierkegaard
A solitary person cannot help, or save, an age; he can only give expression to the fact that it is going under.
—Soren Kierkegaard
It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Courage, Bravery
No time of life is so beautiful as the early days of love, when with every meeting, every glance, one fetches something new home to rejoice over.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Love
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do. He who does not understand irony and has no ear for its whispering lacks of what might called the absolute beginning of the personal life. He lacks what at moments is indispensable for the personal life, lacks both the regeneration and rejuvenation, the cleaning baptism of irony that redeems the soul from having its life in finitude though living boldly and energetically in finitude.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition, and traditions and customs are like the wind and weather, altogether incalculable.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Marriage
Father in Heaven! When the thought of thee wakes in our hearts let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Prayer
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