Inspirational Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard
“In the first case, he personally enjoyed the esthetic; in the second case, he esthetically enjoyed his personality.”
“If Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said, in the preface or some other place, that it was merely an experiment in thought in which he had even begged the question in many places, then he would certainly have been the greatest thinker who had ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.”
― Soren Kierkegaard ,
from Journals
“Ah me! think, sister, how our father perished, amid hate and scorn, when sins bared by his own search had moved him to strike both eyes with self-blinding hand; then the mother wife, two names in one, with twisted noose did despite unto her life; and last, our two brothers in one day,-each shedding, hapless one, a kinsman's blood,-wrought out with mutual hands their common doom. And now we in turn-we two left all alone think how we shall perish, more miserably than all the rest, if, in defiance of the law, we brave a king's decree or his powers. Nay, we must remember, first, that we were born women, as who should not strive with men; next, that we are ruled of the stronger, so that we must obey in these things, and in things yet sorer. I, therefore, asking the Spirits Infernal to pardon, seeing that force is put on me herein, will hearken to our rulers. for 'tis witless to be over busy.”
“There's no room for pride, not in a slave, not with the lord and master standing by.”
“Pues así como estoy, me voy a ir. Venid, venid, compañeros los que estáis presentes y ausentes; y con hachas en las manos corred hacia el lugar famoso. Y yo, puesto que mi opinión así ha cambiado, y yo mismo la aprisioné, quiero estar presente para salvarla; pues temo no sea la mejor resolución el vivir observando las leyes establecidas.”
“I raise myself up once more, look about the room with an indescribable peace of mind, and then it’s goodnight, down under the eiderdown.”
“Besides my other numerous circle of acquaintances I have one more intimate confidant – my melancholy. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, he waves to me, calls me to one side, even though physically I stay put. My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return. […]”
“My soul is so heavy that no longer can any thought sustain it, no wingbeat lift it up into the ether. If it moves, it only sweeps along the ground like the low flight of birds when a thunderstorm is brewing.”
“What is youth? A dream. What is love? The dream’s content.”
“After all, it is the best time of one’s life, the first period of falling in love, when with every meeting, every glance, one brings home something new to rejoice over.”
“I do not have the courage to know anything, nor to possess, to own anything. Most people complain that the world is so prosaic, that life isn’t like a romantic novel where opportunities are always so favourable. What I complain of is that life is not like a novel where there are hard-hearted fathers, and goblins and trolls to fight with, enchanted princesses to free. What are all such enemies taken together compared to the pallid, bloodless, glutinous nocturnal shapes with which I fight and to which I myself give life and being.”
“People say the good Lord fills the stomach before the eyes. I haven’t noticed; my eyes have had enough and I am weary of everything, and yet I hunger.”
“I would rather be a swineherd at Amagerbro and be understood by the swine than be a poet and be misunderstood by people.”
“That’s why my soul always reverts to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There at least one feels that it’s human beings talking. There people hate, people love, people murder their enemy and curse his descendants through all generations, there people sin.”
“My views are the fleeting observations of a ‘travelling scholar’9 rushing through life in the greatest haste. People say the good Lord fills the stomach before the eyes. I haven’t noticed; my eyes have had enough and I am weary of everything, and yet I hunger.”
“No siento yo amor por la que sólo con palabras ama. [...] No mueras tú conmigo ni hagas tuyo un acto en el que no pusiste tu mano.”
“That will come when it comes; we must deal with all that lies before us. The future rests with the ones who tend the future.”
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Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.
Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.