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
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: Gratitude, Prayer
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
The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Instincts
Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe 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.
—Soren 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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
When you open the door which you shut in order to pray to God, the first person you meet as you go out is your neighbour whom you shall love. Wonderful!
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Community
The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.
—Soren 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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Enjoyment
The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Perspective, Tyranny
Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air.
—Soren Kierkegaard
It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Human understanding has vulgarly occupied itself with nothing but understanding, but if it would only take the trouble to understand itself at the same time it would simply have to posit the paradox.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Understanding
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
Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Patience
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: Suicide, Reflection
If an Arab in the desert were suddenly to discover a spring in his tent, and so would always be able to have water in abundance, how fortunate he would consider himself; so too, when a man who … is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Thinking, Happiness
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
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Adversity
The greatest danger is not to take the risk.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Time Management, Value of Time
It is a wonderful thing to see a first-rate philosopher at prayer. Tough-minded thinking and tenderhearted reverence are friends, not enemies. We have for too long separated the head from the heart, and we are the lesser for it. We love God with the mind and we love God with the heart. In reality, we are descending with the mind into the heart and there standing before God in ceaseless wonder and endless praise. As the mind and the heart work in concert, a kind of loving rationality pervades all we say and do. This brings unity to us and glory to God.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Prayer
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.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Age, Aging
It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: God, Possibilities, Potential, Vision
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
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Prayer
It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Desires, Desire
It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Failure, Living, Meaning, Perseverance, Reflection, Past, Challenges, Life, Moving on, Great, Courage, Purpose, Sin, Nature, Fail, Experience, Life and Living, Time
Adversity not only draws people together, but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Friendship
To dare is to lose your foothold” for a moment. Not to dare is to lose yourself.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
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
During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is: not to take the risk. When once the risk has really been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Risk, Trying, Risk-taking
Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.
—Soren Kierkegaard
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