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Søren Kierkegaard Quotes
1813–1855 Denmark
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish Christian philosopher and theologian, considered to be a founder of Existentialist thought and Absurdist traditions. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology and philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables.
Denmark Novelists Philosophers Poets Theologians Also known as: Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Søren, Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard, Soren kierkegaard
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209 quotes
I have attacked no one as not being a Christian, I have condemned no one.
Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die.
Do not despair over every relapse, which the God of patience has the patience to forgive and under which a sinner certainly should have the patience to humble himself.
Practice in Christianity (1850)
What the age needs is not a genius — it has had geniuses enough, but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening.
Every person, if he so wills, can become a paradigmatic human being, not by brushing of his accidental qualities, but by remaining in them and ennobling them. He ennobles them by choosing them.
The relationship between the individual and God, the God-relationship, is the conscience.
Works of Love (1847)
When God created Eve, He let a deep sleep fall upon Adam; for woman is the man's dream.
Either/Or (1843)
Spontaneous love can reach the point of despair, shows that it is in despair, that even when it is happy it loves with the power of despair.
Works of Love (1847)
I give thanks to God that no living being owes me existence.
My doubt goes like this: How could the Loving One have the heart to let human beings become so guilty that they got his murder on their consciences?
Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849)
Whoever has the world’s treasures has them no matter how he got them. In the world of the spirit it is otherwise.
Fear and Trembling (1843)
Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.
A line by Thomas à Kempis which perhaps could be used as a motto sometime.
Any more discursive elaboration of the difference between the sexes or deliberation on which sex is superior is an idle intellectual occupation for loafers and bachelors.
Stages on Life's Way (1845)
Each age has its own characteristic depravity. Ours is perhaps not pleasure or indulgence or sensuality, but rather a dissolute pantheistic contempt for the individual man.
When Christianity came into the world the task was simply to proclaim Christianity. The same is the case wherever Christianity is introduced into a country the religion of which is not Christianity.
Attack upon Christendom (1855)
I must find a truth that is true for me.
The question is asked in ignorance, by one who does not even know what can have led him to ask it.
Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Job endured everything — until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.
A man is born in sin, he enters this world by means of a crime, his existence is a crime – and procreation is the fall.
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