Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

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

I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.

If a man cannot forget, he will never amount to much.

Men who are not religious or artists are fools.

One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states).

For like a poisonous breath over the fields, like a mass of locusts over Egypt, so the swarm of excuses is a general plaque, a ruinous infection among men, that eats off the sprouts of the Eternal.

The more men believe an idea to be true the greater the likelihood that the idea is mistaken. Those who are right usually stand alone.

Men are not on such intimate terms with the sublime that they really can believe in it

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

The question of immortality is of its nature not a scholarly question. It is a question welling up from the interior which the subject must put to itself as it becomes conscious of itself.

There is peace and rest and comfort in sorrow.

Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us - but not suckle us.

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

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.

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.

If you think you understand, it isn't God.

It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.

A good decision is our will to do everything we can within our power. It means to serve God with all we've got, be it little or much. Every person can do that.

The God that can be named is not God.

Teach me, 0 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.

When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me".

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.

...the person who surrenders absolutely to God, with no reservations, is absolutely safe. From this safe hiding-place he can see the devil , but the devil cannot see him.