Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

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

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: Faith, Prayer

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

A solitary person cannot help, or save, an age; he can only give expression to the fact that it is going under.
Soren 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.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Life

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

Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Boredom

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

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Speech, Freedom, People, Thought, Thinking

The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think.
Soren Kierkegaard

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: Happiness, Thinking

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential—for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Wishes, Potential

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

Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Bores, Boredom

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

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

The self is only that which it is in the process of becoming.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Discovery, Self-Discovery

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: Positive Attitudes, Miscellaneous, Possibilities, Joy, Realistic Expectations, Health, Optimism, Potential

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Cheating

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

Adversity not only draws people together, but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Friendship

Spiritual superiority only sees the individual. But alas, ordinarily we human beings are sensual and, therefore, as soon as it is a gathering, the impression changes—we see something abstract, the crowd, and we become different. But in the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd, He only sees each individual.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: People

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 is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Belief

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Ideas

Without risk, faith is an impossibility.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Perspective, Belief, Trying, Faith, Risk

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

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: Experience, Fail, Purpose, Sin, Challenges, Moving on, Failure, Nature, Courage, Meaning, Great, Perseverance, Life and Living, Living, Time, Past, Reflection, Life

I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.
Soren Kierkegaard
Topics: Discontent

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

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