Soren Kierkegaard Quotes
Soren Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious author, widely regarded as the first existentialist thinker. His pseudonymous works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and The Sickness Unto Death, dramatize the inner life of the individual confronted with anxiety, despair, freedom, and faith. The quotes below are attributed to Soren Kierkegaard, organized by topic.
Browse Soren Kierkegaard by topic
Soren Kierkegaard on Freedom
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“Once you label me, you negate me.”
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“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought , they demand freedom of speech .
Soren Kierkegaard on God
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“Faith is the highest passion in a human being.”
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
Soren Kierkegaard on Knowledge
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“Journals of Søren Kierkegaard 1A 8, 1834”
The reason I cannot really say that I positively enjoy nature is that I do not quite realize what it is that I enjoy. A work of art, on the other hand, I can grasp. I can — if I may put it this way — find that Archimedian point, and as soon as I have found it, everything is readily clear for me. Then I am able to pursue this one main idea and see how all the details serve to illuminate it. -
“Journals 1A 68 (29 July 1835)”
In order to learn true humility (I use this expression to describe the state of mind under discussion), it is good for a person to withdraw from the turmoil of the world (we see that Christ withdrew when the people wanted to proclaim him king as well as when he had to walk the thorny path), for in life either the depressing or the elevating impression is too dominant for a true balance to come abo -
“Journal entry, August 1, 1835”
It will be easy for us once we receive the ball of yarn from Ariadne (love) and then go through all the mazes of the labyrinth (life) and kill the monster. But how many are there who plunge into life (the labyrinth) without taking that precaution? -
“Journal entry, August 1, 1835”
It is as useless for a person to want first of all to decide the externals and after that the fundamentals as it is for a cosmic body, thinking to form itself, first of all to decide the nature of its surface, to what bodies it should turn its light, which its dark side, without first letting the harmony of centrifugal and centripetal forces realize its existence and letting the rest come of itsel -
“What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.”
Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A; this is considered to be one of the earliest statements of existentialist thought. | Variant translation: My focus should be on what I do in life, not knowing everything, excluding knowledge on what you do. The is key to find a purpose, whatever it truly is that God wills me to do; it's crucial to find a truth which is true to me, to find the i -
“Kierkegaard Journals and Papers 1A, 86 September 29, 1835”
It occurs to me that artists go forward by going backward, something which I have nothing against intrinsically when it is a reproduced retreat — as is the case with the better artists. But it does not seem right that they stop with the historical themes already given and, so to speak, think that only these are suitable for poetic treatment, because these particular themes, which intrinsically are
Soren Kierkegaard on Life
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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Det er ganske sandt, hvad Philosophien siger, at Livet maa forstaaes baglænds. Men derover glemmer man den anden Sætning, at det maa leves forlænds. -
“It will be easy for us once we receive the ball of yarn from Ariadne (love) and then go through all the mazes of the labyrinth (life) and kill the monster. But how many are there who plunge into life (the labyrinth) without taking that precaution?”
Journal entry, August 1, 1835 -
“Variant translation: My focus should be on what I do in life, not knowing everything, excluding knowledge on what you do. The is key to find a purpose, whatever it truly is that God wills me to do; it's crucial to find a truth which is true to me, to find the idea which I am willing to live and die for.”
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
Soren Kierkegaard on Mind
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”
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“The reason I cannot really say that I positively enjoy nature is that I do not quite realize what it is that I enjoy. A work of art, on the other hand, I can grasp. I can — if I may put it this way — find that Archimedian point, and as soon as I have found it, everything is readily clear for me. Then I am able to pursue this one main idea and see how all the details serve to illuminate it.”
Journals of Søren Kierkegaard 1A 8, 1834 -
“Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A; this is considered to be one of the earliest statements of existentialist thought.”
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
Soren Kierkegaard on Truth
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“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.”
Soren Kierkegaard on Virtue
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Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
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“Purity of heart is to will one thing.”
The two guides call out to a man early and late. And yet, no, for when remorse calls to a man it is always late. The call to find the way again by seeking out God in the confession of sins is always at the eleventh hour. Whether you are young or old, whether you have sinned much or little, whether you have offended much or neglected much, the guilt makes this call come at the eleventh hour. The in -
Attributed to Soren Kierkegaard:
“Boredom is the root of all evil.”
Things actually not said by Soren Kierkegaard
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Soren Kierkegaard but are in fact from someone else. Did Soren Kierkegaard say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Soren Kierkegaard say this? No.
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Attributed to Kierkegaard in a number of books, the earliest located on Google Books being the 1976 book Jack Kerouac: Prophet of the New Romanticism by Robert A. Hipkiss, p. 83 . In the 1948 The Hibbert Journal: Volumes 46-47 the quote is referred to as "the famous Kierkegaardian slogan" on p. 237 , which may be intended to suggest the phrase is Kierkegaard-esque rather than being something written by Kierkegaard, while in the 1949 The Ampleforth Journal the quote is now described on p. 5 as "Kierkegaard's famous slogan". In reality this seems to be a slightly altered version of the quote "The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced" which appeared…
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Did Soren Kierkegaard say this? No.
“I am no part of a whole, I am not integrated, not included. To put me in this whole you imagine is to negate me.”
Attributed as part of Kierkegaard's response to Hegel in the article "Existentialism: A Preface" by Jean Wahl , in The New Republic , 30 September 1945. Though the statement is in quotes it may have been intended as a paraphrase of Kierkegaard's criticism of Hegel. The paragraph of Wahl's article containing these words was also quoted on p. 190 of the book A Kierkegaard Anthology edited by Robert Bretall (1946 edition); the book Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered by Jon Stewart (2003), the first few pages of which are viewable here , mentions on p. 8 that Bretall's anthology "has served as an introductory textbook for anglophone students of Kierkegaard for many years now." (Disputed.)
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Did Soren Kierkegaard say this? No.
“Put me in a System and you negate me—I am not just a mathematical symbol—I am.”
The Outsider (1956) by Colin Wilson , p. 20. The statement was prefaced by "He declared" but was not in quotes, so unclear if intended as a direct quote or a paraphrase, and it was part of a paragraph discussing Kierkegaard's response to Hegel, so may have been based on Wahl's article. (Disputed.)
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Did Soren Kierkegaard say this? No.
“Put a label on me and you negate me.”
Attributed to Kierkegaard in a letter from Marcia Jacobs to the New York Times Magazine , 15 October 1967, p. 16. Viewable on p. 241 of the online "timesmachine" here . (Disputed.)