Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. 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...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth5 May 1813
CityCopenhagen, Denmark
CountryDenmark
Soren Kierkegaard quotes about
Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence; its giddiness, like that which comes from gazing down into an infinite abyss, is infinite.
Certainty... lurks at the door of faith and threatens to devour it.
Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.
This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.
It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
A man may perform astonishing feats and comprehend a vast amount of knowledge, and yet have no understanding of himself. But suffering directs a man to look within. If it succeeds, then there, within him, is the beginning of his learning.
You live life looking forward, you understand life looking backward.
All moral elevation consists first and foremost of being weaned from the momentary.
I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.
The wisdom of the years is confusing. Only the wisdom of eternity is edifying.
I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about.
The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.