Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

And the desire to prevent all misunderstanding about an enterprise one is about to undertake is a thing that could occur only to a youth. There is nothing that so easily gets beyond one's control and so easily becomes misunderstood, as a misunderstanding. Even if one were to undertake nothing more than merely to avoid misunderstanding – then in that case one would presumably become the most thoroughly misunderstood of all men.

She awakens first at the touch of love; before that time she is a dream, yet in her dream life we can distinguish two stages: in the first, love dreams about her; in the second, she dreams about love.

People who do not know how to remain silent, do not know how to talk.

Only at the moment when his act is in absolute contradiction to his feeling is his act a sacrifice, but the reality of his act is the factor by which he belongs to the universal, and in that aspect he is and remains a murderer.

It doesn't appeal to experience, which of all laughable things is perhaps the most laughable and, far from making a man wise, if he knows nothing higher it will soon make him mad.

But in Christendom we play at believing, play at being Christians; as far as possible from any breach with what we love, we remain at home, in the parlor, in the old grooves of finiteness – and then we go and twaddle with one another, or let the pastor twaddle to us, about all the promises which are found in the New Testament, that no one shall harm us, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against us, against the Church, etc.

Abraham was greater than all, great by reason of his power whose strength is impotence, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself.

Aber Existieren ist etwas ganz anderes als Wissen.

But take heed to pay them willingly and promptly what money they should have. With those whom one despises, one on no account should have money differences, lest it might perhaps be said that it was to get out of paying them one avoided them. No, pay them double, in order that thy disagreement with them may be thoroughly clear: that what concerns them does not concern thee at all, namely, money; and on the contrary, that what does not concern them concerns thee infinitely, namely, Christianity.

La alternativa que se nos presenta es la siguiente: o bien corremos un velo sobre la historia de Abraham, o bien aprendemos a espantarnos ante la inaudita paradoja que da sentido a su vida

Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.

Nunca se sabe qué desesperadas ideas pueden ocurrírsele a un hombre desesperado; en ocasiones, hasta los más tímidos y previsores se atreven, en tal estado, a los más audaces actos.

The most painful state of being is remembering the future.)

In the old days they said, "What a pity things don't go on in the world as the parson preaches" — perhaps the time is coming, especially with the help of philosophy, when they will say, "Fortunately things don't go on as the parson preaches;

Kierkegaard says: "An ethic which ignores sin is an absolutely idle science.

Consequently, for us light-minded and unstable human beings there is sheer fear and trembling in this thought of God's changelessness

to have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession made to man, but at the same time it is eternity's demand upon him.

Oh, to what degree human beings would become—human and lovable beings—if they would become single individuals before God!

There is a loss that is eternally irreparable; thus eternity—even more frightful—far from wiping out the recollection of what is lost, is an eternal recollection of what is lost!

love is all; it gives all and it takes all.

Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eyes as in the abyss . . . Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

At digte sig ind i en pige er en kunst, at digte sig ud af hende er et mesterstykke.

El azar propicio aparece tan rara vez que cuando se presenta o se encuentra, hay que saberlo agarrar con toda la fuerza; el seducir a una muchacha no es un arte, pero sí lo es, ¡y cómo!, saber encontrar a una muchacha que merezca que se la seduzca.