Soren Kierkegaard Quotes
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The highest of all is not to understand the highest but to act upon it.
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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.
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I would have perished had I not perished.
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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!
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A 'no' does not hide anything, but a 'yes' very easily becomes a deception.
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The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.
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This is the miracle of life: that each person who heeds him or herself knows what no scientist can ever know: who he or she is.
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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.
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I have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything; I have, I believe, the courage to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own anything.
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What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.
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Once you are born in this world you’re old enough to die.
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The most common despair is...not choosing, or willing, to be oneself...but the deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than oneself.
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Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
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In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.
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Those who dream must be awakened, and the deeper the people are who slumber, or the deeper they slumber, the more important it is that they be awakened, and the more powerfully must they be awakened.
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Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, who so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility.
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Men think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes--and your enemy looks just like your neighbor.
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Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life.
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Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term.
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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.
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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.
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Adversity not only draws people together, but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.
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Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts.
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...the greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally - weaknesses, fears, and all. For God loves obedience more than good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too often made under the guise of weakness.