Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (born 5 May 1813, Copenhagen, Denmark – died 11 November 1855, Copenhagen, Denmark) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author. He is widely regarded as the first existentialist philosopher. Kierkegaard's stages of existence, “truth as subjectivity,” “faith in the absurd,” and his analyses of existential anxiety and despair are among his well-known philosophical ideas.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.The most common form of despair is not being who you are.Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.Once you label me you negate me.Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.Confidence is the present tense of hope.The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.The unhappy person is never present to themself because they always live in the past or the future.The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all.It is not where we breathe, but where we Love, that we live.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.Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.During the first period of a man’s life, the greatest danger is not to take the risk.I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?Don’t forget to love yourself.It’s better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion.Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized prayer is listening.The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see.It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.Purity of heart is to will one thing.Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.It is better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed. The result may be the same, but you won’t be. We always grow more through defeats than victories.Boredom is the root of all evil – the despairing refusal to be oneself.The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.The truth is a trap: you cannot get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.
Søren Kierkegaard
What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.
Søren Kierkegaard
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.The question is not “To be or not to be,” it is what we should be until we are not.God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.It is hard to believe because it is hard to obey.To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self… And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one’s self.Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.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.The more people who believe something, the more apt it is to be wrong. The person who’s right often has to stand alone.Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.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.The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
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.
Søren Kierkegaard
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.
Søren Kierkegaard
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God.I'm so misunderstood that people misunderstand me even when I tell them I'm misunderstood.
