Kierkegaard Quotes

I have never fought in such a way as to say: I am the true Christian, others are not Christians.

Fate, then, is the nothing of anxiety.

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!

The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply, 'Create silence'.

For the sadness in legitimate humour consists in the fact that honestly and without deceit it reflects in a purely human way upon what it is to be a child.

No one may pride himself at being more than an individual, and no one despondently think that he is not an individual.

There are men who are wanting in the comparative, they as a rule are the most interesting.

Backwards understood be only can but, forwards lived be must life.

If the ethical - that is, social morality- is the highest ... then no categories are needed other than the Greek philosophical categories.

To venture causes anxiety. Not to venture is to lose oneself.

The meaning lies in the appropriation.

To be lost in spiritlessness is the most terrible thing of all.

My scholarly expectation is then that I may succeed in becoming clever in philosophy in spite of my stupidity.

Jurists say that a capital crime submerges all lesser crimes; and so it is with faith. Its absurdity makes all petty difficultiesvanish.

In the Christianity of Christendom the Cross has become something like the child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.

To be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, etc.

I do not lack the courage to think a thought whole.

It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.

Preparation for becoming attentive to Christianity does not consist in reading many books ... but in fuller immersion in existence.

Choose to be who you are. . . The individual who would become a person must at some point take over his entire being - must, that is, choose herself.

But doubt is wily and cunning and never, as it is sometimes said to be, loud or defiant. It is unassuming and sly, not bold or assertive - and the more unassuming, the more dangerous.

In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth.

I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.

Irony is a qualification of subjectivity.

Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning.

Truth is not introduced into the individual from without but was within him all the time.

Without risk faith is an impossibility.

Adversity not only draws people together but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.

People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have for example freedom of thought instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.

Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.

What our age lacks is not reflection but passion.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over the martyr dies and his rule begins.

Prayer does not change God but it changes him who prays.

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.

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.

Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forward.

Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.

Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.

In relationship to God one can not involve himself to a certain degree. God is precisely the contradiction to all that is 'to a certain degree'.

For I have trained myself and am training myself always to be able to dance lightly in the service of thought

No woman in maternity confinement can have stranger and more impatient wishes than I have.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in everygeneration may not come that far, but none comes further.

When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.

It costs a man just as much or even more to go to hell than to come to heaven. Narrow, exceedingly narrow is the way to perdition!

Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief, but it is belief that is the positive, it is beliefthat sustains thought and holds the world together.

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.

Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.

I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness the more intense the despair

With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness the more intense the despair.