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
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
Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic—if it is pulled out I shall die.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Sorrow, Sadness
Don’t forget to love yourself.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Love
Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Prayer
Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Life
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
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Haste, Pleasure, Men, Happiness
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: Bravery, Courage
Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Boredom, Bores
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Optimism, Joy, Potential, Positive Attitudes, Realistic Expectations, Health, Miscellaneous, Possibilities
The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Laziness
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
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
The greatest danger is not to take the risk.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Value of Time, Time Management
Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Dying, Death
Once you label me you negate me.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Identity, Names
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
Be that self which one truly is. – Kierkegaard, Soren
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Self-love
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
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
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: Science, Philosophy
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Life, Living
It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Desire, Desires
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
Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Teaching
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
When you read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, “It is talking to me, and about me.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Bible, Religion
Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Personality
Teach me, O God, not to torture myself, not to make a martyr out of myself through stifling reflection, but rather teach me to breathe deeply in faith.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Prayer, Faith
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