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Soren Kierkegaard Quotes - Page 15

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Reflection is not the evil; but a reflective condition and the deadlock which it involves, by transforming the capacity for action into a means of escape from action, is both corrupt and dangerous, and leads in the end

Reflection is not the evil; but a reflective condition and the deadlock which it involves, by transforming the capacity for action into a means of escape from action, is both corrupt and dangerous, and leads in the end to a retrograde movement.

Soren Kierkegaard
Mean, Reflection, Evil

There can be no faith without risk.

Soren Kierkegaard
Risk

Philosophy always requires something more, requires the eternal, the true, in contrast to which even the fullest existence as such is but a happy moment.

Soren Kierkegaard
Philosophy, Science, Philosopher

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.

Soren Kierkegaard
Love, Depression, Depressing
"Either/Or" by Soren Kierkegaard, ‎Howard Vincent Hong, ‎Edna Hatlestad Hong, Princeton University Press, Vol. 1, 1987.

Take it and return it: the kiss of love.

Soren Kierkegaard
Kissing, Return, Love Kissing

Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice. . . but the voice of eternity within a person it cannot drown.

Soren Kierkegaard
Adversity, Voice, Affliction

Whoever has the world's treasures has them no matter how he got them. In the world of the spirit it is otherwise.

Soren Kierkegaard
Faith, World, Treasure
"Fear and Trembling". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, translation by S. Walsh, p. 21, 2006.

Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand . . . what he learns and the way he understands it.

Soren Kierkegaard
Education, Teacher, May

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.

Soren Kierkegaard
Choices, Doe, Tasks
"Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, February 28, 1846.

As the arrow, loosed from the bow by the hand of the practiced archer, does not rest till it has reached the mark, so men pass from God to God. He is the mark for which they have been created, and they do not rest till they find their rest in him.

Soren Kierkegaard
Archer, Men, Hands

A curiously interested observer sees a great deal, a scientifically interested observer is worthy of all honor, and anxiously interested observer sees what others do not see, but a crazy observer sees perhaps the most, his observation is more intense and more persistent, just as the senses of certain animals are sharper than those of man.

Soren Kierkegaard
Crazy, Men, Animal

Marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition, and traditions and customs are like the wind and weather, altogether incalculable.

Soren Kierkegaard
Marriage, Wind, Weather

I do not care for anything. I do not care to ride, for the exercise is too violent. I do not care to walk, walking is too strenuous. I do not care to lie down, for I should either have to remain lying, and I do not care to do that, or I should have to get up again, and I do not care to do that either. Summa summarum: I do not care at all.

Soren Kierkegaard
Lying, Exercise, Should Have
Soren Kierkegaard (1946). “Either/or”

Christianity does not oppose debauchery and uncontrollable passions and the like as much as it opposes... flat mediocrity, this nauseating atmosphere, this homey, civil togetherness, where admittedly great crimes, wild excesses, and powerful aberrations cannot easily occur - but where God's unconditional demand has even greater difficulty in accomplishing what it requires: the majestic obedience of submission.

Soren Kierkegaard
Christian, Powerful, Passion

Where unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there is disobedience down at the bottom.

Soren Kierkegaard
Christian, Temptation, Stronger

The great trick with a woman is to get rid of her while she think's she's rid of you.

Soren Kierkegaard
Women, Thinking, Tricks

The gods were bored and so they created man. Adam was bored because he was alone, so Eve was created. Thus boredom entered the world, and increased in proportion to the increase in population. Adam was bored alone, then Adam and Eve were bored together; them Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille; then the population of the world increased, and the people were bored en masse.

Soren Kierkegaard
Men, People, Boredom

It is intelligent to ask two questions: (1) Is it possible? (2) Can I do it?. But it is unintelligent to ask these questions: (1) Is it real? (2) Has my neighbor done it?

Soren Kierkegaard
Real, Intelligent, Two

Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humourist, then the religious person.

Soren Kierkegaard
Religious, Next, Spirit
"Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, p. 504, February 28, 1846.

Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent; genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead.

Soren Kierkegaard
Time, Genius, Want

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

Soren Kierkegaard
Men, Opposites, Imperfection
The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1841.

And then the spirit brings hope, hope in the strictest Christian sense, hope which is hoping against hope. For an immediate hope exists in every person; it may be more powerfully alive in one person than in another; but in death every hope of this kind dies and turns into hopelessness. Into this night of hopelessness (it is death that we are describing) comes the life-giving spirit and brings hope, the hope of eternity. It is against hope, for there was no longer any hope for that merely natural hope; this hope is therefore a hope contrary to hope.

Soren Kierkegaard
Christian, Hope, Night

As I stood alone and forsaken, and the power of the sea and the battle of the elements reminded me of my own nothingness, and on the other hand, the sure flight of the birds recalled the words spoken by Christ: Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father: then, all at once, I felt how great and how small I was; then did those two mighty forces, pride and humility, happily unite in friendship.

Soren Kierkegaard
Father, Fall, Humility

It is only all too easy to understand the requirements contained in God's Word ('Give all your goods to the poor.' 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left.' 'If anyone takes your coat, let him have your cloak also. Rejoice always.' 'Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations' etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny being able to understand God's requirements. But it is tough on the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly. It is not a question of interpretation, but action.

Soren Kierkegaard
Christian, Giving, Joy

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.

Soren Kierkegaard
Heart, Men, People

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