Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

The fortunate chance in life is that the two correspond, that my wish is my duty and vice versa, and the task of most men in life is precisely to remain within their duty and by their enthusiasm to transform it into their wish.

He says, Come unto me, etc., etc., then, by reason of the situation which furnishes the more express understanding, the consequences will always be exposure to danger, perhaps to mortal danger. On the other hand, where all are Christians, the situation is this: to call oneself a Christian is the means whereby one secures oneself against all sorts of inconveniences and discomforts, and the means whereby one secures worldly goods, comforts, profit, etc., etc.

Whereas in the old days one acquired eternal happiness by the grace of God, now too often the eternal happiness seems to have become like an aged and infirm pensioner who sustains his life in the house of the rich on the wretched crust of poverty.

if poetry were to pay attention to the religious and to the inwardness of personalities, it would find themes of far greater importance than those with which it now busies itself

That one is in despair is not a rarity; no, it is rare, very rare, that one is…not in despair.

Love for that princess became for him the expression for an eternal love, assumed a religious character, was transfigured into a love for the Eternal Being, which did to be sure deny him the fulfilment of his love, yet reconciled him again by the eternal consciousness of its validity in the form of eternity, which no reality can take from him.

The majority of men are curtailed I's; what was planned by nature as a possibility capable of being sharpened into an I is soon dulled into a third person.

Every person shudders at becoming a personality, shudders at standing as a personality vis-à-vis others?he shudders at it because he knows very well that this makes it possible for the others to catch sight of him. The human being shudders at becoming manifest; thus he loves, if not pitch darkness, then at any rate twilight, mystification, impersonality.

Hence it is a superficial view (which presumably has never seen a person in despair, not even one's own self) when it is said of a man in despair, He is consuming himself. For precisely this it is he despairs of, and to his torment it is precisely this he cannot do, since by despair fire has entered into something that cannot burn, or cannot burn up, that is, into the self.

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart it torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music.

We live our lives forward and understand them backward.

And should I not indeed be relaxed, I who consider myself the darling of the gods, to whom befell the rare good fortune to fall in love again? That, after all, is something no art, no study, can produce; it is a gift. But since I have succeeded in stirring up a love once more, I want at least to see how long it can be kept going. This love I coddle as I never did my first.

Unless you grasp that it requires all the strength of spirit to die, that the hero always dies before his death, you will not come particularly far in your observations on life.

Just think what it means to live in a Christian state, a Christian nation, where everything is Christian, and we are all Christians, where, however a man twists and turns, he sees nothing but Christianity and Christendom, the truth and witnesses to the truth –

Así que, ¡a la una, a las dos y… a las tres!: me lanzo de cabeza a la existencia, pero el salto siguiente, ése no me atrevo a intentarlo, porque no soy capaz de realizar prodigios y me conformo con asombrarme al contemplarlos.

Is it not possible that my activity as an objective observer of nature will weaken my strength as a human being?

Subjectivity is truth and if subjectivity is in existing, then, if I may put it this way, Christianity is a perfect fit.

For, humanly speaking, death is the last thing of all; and, humanly speaking, there is hope only so long as there is life. But Christianly understood death is by no means the last thing of all, hence it is only a little event within that which is all, an eternal life; and Christianly understood there is in death infinitely much more hope than merely humanly speaking there is when there not only is life but this life exhibits the fullest health and vigor.

A fé não constitui, portanto, um impulso de ordem estética; é de outra ordem muito mais elevada, justamente porque pressupõe a resignação. Não é o instinto imediato do coração, mas o paradoxo da vida.

Maldito azar! ¡Tú, mi único amigo íntimo, único ser al que creía digno de confianza, de mi alianza y de mi enemistad, siempre inestable y siempre igual a ti mismo, siempre incomprensible, eterno enigma!

There is so much talk about being offended by christianity because it is so dark and gloomy, offended because it is so rigorous etc. But it would be best of all to explain for once that the real reason that men are offended by christianity is that it is too high, because its goal is not man's goal, because it wants to make man into something so extraordinary that he cannot grasp the thought.

Mi tarea consiste en poner freno a una difusión mentirosa del Cristianismo y en ayudarle al Cristianismo a sacudirse de una masa de Cristianos nominales.

Si Abraham hubiese obrado de otro modo, es posible que aun así hubiese amado a Dios, pero no habría creído, porque quien ama a Dios sin que su amor vaya acompañado de la fe, se refleja en sí mismo, mientras que quien ama a Dios creyendo se refleja en Él.

La mayoría de los hombres se desesperarían si se les dijera cuán infinitamente rica es la existencia, y que un hombre, un solo hombre, basta, lo es todo, y que con él los más grandes acontecimientos son posibles.