Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

So soon as I talk I express the universal, and if I do not do so, no one can understand me.

In infinite resignation there is peace and repose; anyone who wants it, who has not debased himself by—what is still worse than being too proud—belittling himself, can discipline himself into making this movement, which in its pain reconciles one to existence.

There is, however, a power that is called memory. It should be dear to all the good ones as well as to all lovers. Yes, it may even be so dear to lovers that they almost prefer this whisper of memory to the sight of each other, as when they say, "Do you remember that time, and do you remember that time?

Creo que se podría vivir constantemente absorto en la contemplación de un ser femenino.

Solo hay un camino para asegurarse nunca ser engañado, y ese es el de creerlo todo amorosamente.

For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul. 24

The present writer is nothing of a philosopher, he has not understood the System, does not know whether it actually exists, whether it is completed; already he has enough for his weak head in the thought of what a prodigious head everybody in our day must have, since everybody has such a prodigious thought.

Did the Apostle Paul have any official position?' No, Paul had no official position. 'Did he, then, earn a lot of money in another way?' No, he did not earn money in any way. 'Was he, then, at least married?' No, he was not married. 'But then Paul was certainly not a serious man!' No, Paul is not a serious man.

It is related of a Swedish priest that, profoundly disturbed by the sight of the effect his address produced upon the auditors, who were dissolved in tears, he said soothingly, Children, do not weep; the whole thing might be a lie.

De omnibus dubitandum est

men var han ikke Synthese, kunde han slet ikke fortvivle, og var Synthesen ikke oprindeligt fra Guds Haand i det rette Forhold, kunde han heller ikke fortvivle.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. ~ Søren Kierkegaard

hay posibilidad del bien incluso en el último instante, y que hay por tanto esperanza todavía incluso para el más perdido.

Learning to know anxiety is an adventure which every man has to affront…He therefore who has learned rightly to be in anxiety has learned the most important thing.

life has always in store analogous phenomena which perhaps one will not escape. Sympathy one must have; but this sympathy is genuine only when one knows oneself deeply and knows that what has happened to one man may happen to all. Only thus can one be of some utility to oneself and to others.

If you can do that, if you can find exactly the place where the other is and begin there, you may perhaps have the luck to lead him to the place where you are. For to be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, etc. No, to be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.

greatness of that with which he strove. For he who strove with the world became great by overcoming the world, and he who strove with himself became great by overcoming himself, but he who strove with God became greater than all.

And one thing the author must not forget: his purpose.

La fe no es, por lo tanto, un movimiento estético, sino que pertenece a un estadio más elevado; precisamente por eso ha de ir precedida de la resignación; no es un impulso inmediato del corazón, sino la paradoja de la existencia.

Much is said in our age about irony and humor, especially by people who have never been capable of engaging in the practice of these arts, but who nevertheless know how to explain everything.

I still accept an imperative of knowledge, through which men may be influenced, but then it must come alive in me, and this is what I now recognize as the most important of all. This is what my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water. This is what I need to live, a completely human life and not merely one of knowledge

What is it to be God's elect? It is to be denied in youth the wishes of youth, so as with great pains to get them fulfilled in old age.

To love him who makes one happy, is to a reflective mind an inadequate definition of what love is; to love him who made one unhappy out of malice, is virtue; but to love him who out of love, though by a misunderstanding, yet out of love, made one unhappy – that is the formula never yet enunciated, so far as I know, but nevertheless the normal formula in reflection for what it is to love.

Wenn man die Philosophen von der Wirklichkeit reden hört, so ist das oft ebenso irreführend, wie wenn man im Schaufenster eines Trödlers auf einem Schild die Worte liest: Hier wird gerollt. Wollte man mit seiner Wäsche kommen und sie rollen lassen, so wäre man angeführt. Der Schild hängt nur zum Verkauf da.