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
God does not think; he creates. He does not exist; he is eternal.
Genius never desires what does not exist.
The idea of demonstrating that this unknown something [God] exists, could scarcely suggest itself to Reason. For if God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it, and if he does exist it would be folly to attempt it.
If a man wants to set up as an innkeeper and he does not succeed, it is not comic. If, on the contrary, a girl asks to be allowed to set up as a prostitute and she fails, as sometimes happens, it is comic.
Just as in the great moment of resignation one does not mediate but chooses, now the task is to gain proficiency in repeating the impassioned choice and, existing, to express it in existence.
The presence of irony does not necessarily mean that the earnestness is excluded. Only assistant professors assume that.
I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably blissful, when it is absent, I long for it more vehemently than does the lover for his object.
A 'no' does not hide anything, but a 'yes' very easily becomes a deception.
The question is asked in ignorance, by one who does not even know what can have led him to ask it.
To be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, etc.
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
It was not to save a nation that Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, nor to appease angry gods... Then why does Abraham do it? For God's sake... He does it for the sake of God because God demands proof of his faith... He was not justified by being virtuous, but by being an individual submitted to God in faith.
Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
O Luther, you had 95 theses . . . The matter is far more terrible-there is only one thesis. The Christianity of the New Testament does not exist at all. Here there is nothing to reform.