Soren Kierkegaard Quotes - Page 16

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Whoever has the world's treasures has them no matter how he got them. In the world of the spirit it is otherwise.

Soren Kierkegaard

Faith, World, Treasure

"Fear and Trembling". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, translation by S. Walsh, p. 21, 2006.

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Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular.

Soren Kierkegaard

Numbers, Verbs, Language

Soren Kierkegaard (2015). “Papers and Journals”, p.62, Penguin UK

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My tactics were, by God's aid, to employ every means to make it clear what the requirement of Christianity truly is.

Soren Kierkegaard

Mean, Requirements, Tactics

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The gods were bored and so they created man. Adam was bored because he was alone, so Eve was created. Thus boredom entered the world, and increased in proportion to the increase in population. Adam was bored alone, then Adam and Eve were bored together; them Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille; then the population of the world increased, and the people were bored en masse.

Soren Kierkegaard

Men, People, Boredom

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Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.

Soren Kierkegaard

Mean, Atheism, Way

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Take it and return it: the kiss of love.

Soren Kierkegaard

Kissing, Return, Love Kissing

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Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humourist, then the religious person.

Soren Kierkegaard

Religious, Next, Spirit

"Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, p. 504, February 28, 1846.

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So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to die-yet not as though there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope, death, is not available. When death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life; but when one becomes acquainted with an even more dreadful danger, one hopes for death. So when the danger is so great that death has become one's hope, despair is the disconsolateness of not being able to die.

Soren Kierkegaard

Life, Hope, Sick

Soren Kierkegaard (2013). “Sickness Unto Death”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

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

Soren Kierkegaard

Science, Objectivity, Example

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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

Philosophy, Science, Philosopher

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The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones.

Soren Kierkegaard

Passion, Thinking, Conclusion

Soren Kierkegaard (2013). “Fear and Trembling”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

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Compared with the person who is conscious of his despair, the despairing individual who is ignorant of his despair is simply a negativity further away from the truth and deliverance. . . . Yet ignorance is so far from breaking the despair or changing despair to nondespairing that it can in fact be the most dangerous form of despair. . . . An individual is furthest from being conscious of himself as spirit when he is ignorant of being in despair. But precisely this-not to be conscious of oneself as spirit-is despair, which is spiritlessness. . . .

Soren Kierkegaard

Ignorance, Negativity, Individuality

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And then the spirit brings hope, hope in the strictest Christian sense, hope which is hoping against hope. For an immediate hope exists in every person; it may be more powerfully alive in one person than in another; but in death every hope of this kind dies and turns into hopelessness. Into this night of hopelessness (it is death that we are describing) comes the life-giving spirit and brings hope, the hope of eternity. It is against hope, for there was no longer any hope for that merely natural hope; this hope is therefore a hope contrary to hope.

Soren Kierkegaard

Christian, Hope, Night

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To despair over one's sins indicates that sin has become or wants to be internally consistent. It wants nothing to do with the good, does not want to be so weak as to listen occasionally to other talk. No, it insists on listening only to itself, on having dealings only with itself; it closes itself up within itself, indeed, locks itself inside one more inclosure, and protects itself against every attack or pursuit by the good by despairing over sin.

Soren Kierkegaard

Listening, Despair, Doe

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Worship isn't God's show. God is the audience. God's watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.

Soren Kierkegaard

Drama, People, Actors

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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

Life, Spiritual, Eye

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Our age is essentially one of understanding and reflection, without passion, momentarily bursting into enthusiasm and shrewdly relapsing into repose.

Soren Kierkegaard

Passion, Reflection, Understanding

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Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent; genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead.

Soren Kierkegaard

Time, Genius, Want

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An individual in despair despairs over something. . . . In despairing over something, he really despair[s] over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper. . . . To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself-this is the formula for all despair.

Soren Kierkegaard

Individuality, Despair, Want

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It goes against the grain for me to do what so often happens, to speak inhumanly about the great as if a few millennia were an immense distance. I prefer to speak humanly about it, as if it happened yesterday, and let only the greatness itself be the distance.

Soren Kierkegaard

Distance, Greatness, Yesterday

"Fear and Trembling". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, translation by S. Walsh, p. 28, 2006.

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Human justice is very prolix, and yet at times quite mediocre; divine justice is more concise and needs no information from the prosecution, no legal papers, no interrogation of witnesses, but makes the guilty one his own informer and helps him with eternity's memory.

Soren Kierkegaard

Memories, Divine Justice, Paper

"Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Against Cowardliness". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, p. 351,

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Where unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there is disobedience down at the bottom.

Soren Kierkegaard

Christian, Temptation, Stronger

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It is intelligent to ask two questions: (1) Is it possible? (2) Can I do it?. But it is unintelligent to ask these questions: (1) Is it real? (2) Has my neighbor done it?

Soren Kierkegaard

Real, Intelligent, Two

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As I stood alone and forsaken, and the power of the sea and the battle of the elements reminded me of my own nothingness, and on the other hand, the sure flight of the birds recalled the words spoken by Christ: Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father: then, all at once, I felt how great and how small I was; then did those two mighty forces, pride and humility, happily unite in friendship.

Soren Kierkegaard

Father, Fall, Humility

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My life is absolutely meaningless. When I consider the different periods into which it falls, it seems like the word Schnur in the dictionary, which means in the first place a string, in the second, a daughter-in-law. The only thing lacking is that the word Schnur should mean in the third place a camel, in the fourth, a dust-brush.

Soren Kierkegaard

Daughter, Fall, Mean

Soren Kierkegaard (1959). “Either/ Or”

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Soren Kierkegaard

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Born: May 5, 1813
Died: November 11, 1855
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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