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
The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
—Soren Kierkegaard
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: Meaning, Failure, Past, Life and Living, Life, Perseverance, Experience, Sin, Living, Purpose, Challenges, Reflection, Time, Courage, Nature
The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Adversity not only draws people together, but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Friendship
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
—Soren Kierkegaard
People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Freedom, Thinking
There is nothing of which every man is so afraid, as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Fear, Doing Your Best
To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.
—Soren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Belief
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
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