Kierkegaard was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. He was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity, primarily that of the Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking, and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.
Selected Quotes of Soren Kierkegaard are:
- Seek first God's Kingdom, that is, become like the lilies and
the birds, become perfectly silent — then shall the rest be added
unto you.
- Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived
forwards.
- Death induces the sensual person to say: Let us eat and drink,
because tomorrow we shall die – but this is sensuality’s cowardly
lust for life, that contemptible order of things where one lives in
order to eat and drink instead of eating and drinking in order to
live.
- Deep within every human being there still lives the anxiety over
the possibility of being alone in the world, forgotten by God,
overlooked among the millions and millions in this enormous
household. One keeps this anxiety at a distance by looking at the
many round about who are related to him as kin and friends, but the
anxiety is still there, nevertheless, and one hardly dares think of
how he would feel if all this were taken away.
- Above all do not forget your duty to love yourself.
- To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very
different thing from going on one's knees and thanking Him.
- The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to
change the nature of the one who prays.
- 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. Instruction begins when you, the
teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that
you may understand what he understands and the way he understands
it.
- The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
- The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his
rule begins.
- The truth is a trap: you can not get it without it getting you;
you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.
- Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense,
self-deception.
- People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the
freedom of thought which they seldom use.
- Once you label me you negate me.
- When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world —
no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists
solely of opportunities for love.
- If I have ventured wrongly, very well, life then helps me with
its penalty. But if I haven't ventured at all, who helps me then?
- Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we
hurry past it.
- Sin is in itself separation from the good, but despair over sin
is separation a second time.
- Out of love, God becomes man. He says: "See, here is what it is
to be a human being."
- God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure,
but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of
sinners
- Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for
even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved;
the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be
your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.
- It is perhaps the misfortune of my life that I am interested in
far too much but not decisively in any one thing; all my interests
are not subordinated in one but stand on an equal footing.
- What the age needs is not a genius — it has had geniuses enough,
but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be
obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening. And therefore
someday, not only my writings but my whole life, all the intriguing
mystery of the machine will be studied and studied. I never forget
how God helps me and it is therefore my last wish that everything
may be to his honour.
- Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always
stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed
by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a
majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion — and
who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the
minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again
reverts to a new minority.
- To work for a living certainly cannot be the meaning of life,
since it is indeed a contradiction that the continual production of
the conditions is supposed to be the answer to the question of the
meaning of that which is conditional upon their production.
- I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul;
witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me,
but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of
the earth's orbit --- and wanted to shoot myself.
- How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and
why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust
into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of
human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called
actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice?
And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have
something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I
make my complaint?
- Then the Comforter comes with the explanation; then he makes
everything new, strips the sufferer of his mourning apparel and
gives him a new heart and an assured spirit. It may, however, take
time.
- In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more
intimate confidant. . . . My depression is the most faithful
mistress I have known- no wonder, then, that I return the love.
- 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.
- Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving
birth — look at the dying man’s struggle at his last extremity, and
then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be
intended for enjoyment.
- The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
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