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Soren Kierkegaard Quotes

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Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard
Love, Life, Positive
The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1844.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

Soren Kierkegaard
Inspirational, Truth, Believe

People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.

Soren Kierkegaard
People, Despair, Levels

It is better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed. The result may be the same, but you won't be. We always grow more through defeats than victories.

Soren Kierkegaard
Victory, Trying, May

I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God

Soren Kierkegaard
Voice, Silence, Silent

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Soren Kierkegaard
Freedom, Thinking, People

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.

Soren Kierkegaard
Despair, Common, Spirituality

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Soren Kierkegaard
Love, Life, Happiness

Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.

Soren Kierkegaard
May, Chance, Lost

Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.

Soren Kierkegaard
Art, Passion, Winning

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

Soren Kierkegaard
Sitting Still, Feelings, Everyday

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

Soren Kierkegaard
Change, God, Faith

The unhappy person is never present to themself because they always live in the past or the future.

Soren Kierkegaard
Past, Unhappy Person, Persons

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.

Soren Kierkegaard
Bible, Christian, Biblical
"The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical". Book by Shane Claiborne, 2006.

The question is not "To be or not to be," it is what we should be until we are not.

Soren Kierkegaard
Should, Be Or Not To Be

It is not where we breathe, but where we Love, that we live.

Soren Kierkegaard
Breathe

Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?

Soren Kierkegaard
Questions And Answers, World

Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.

Soren Kierkegaard
Crowds, Untruth

In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him... instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.

Soren Kierkegaard
Learning, Order, Understanding

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

Soren Kierkegaard
Life, Success, Courage

Once you label me you negate me.

Soren Kierkegaard
Inspirational, Life, Names
"Journal of Marriage and Family Counseling", Vol. 2 by American Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, p. 33, 1976.

Hope is passion for what is possible.

Soren Kierkegaard
Hope, Passion

Do it or don't do it - you will regret both.

Soren Kierkegaard
Regret, You Will Regret
Soren Kierkegaard (2004). “Either/Or: A Fragment of Life”, p.409, Penguin UK

The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, not heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism - no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet. There is nothing that so insidiously displaces the majestic as cordiality.

Soren Kierkegaard
Christian, Sweet, Atheist

It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.

Soren Kierkegaard
Path, Difficulty

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