Quotes by "Søren Kierkegaard"

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

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

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!

If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.

Hope is a passion for the possible.

Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by a genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.

la vida sólo puede ser entendida mirando hacia atrás; aunque deba ser vivida mirando hacia adelante

Philosophy cannot and should not give us an account of faith, but should understand itself and know just what it has indeed to offer, without taking anything away, least of all cheating people out of something by making them think it is nothing.

It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived—forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward- looking position.

No woman in maternity confinement can have stranger and more impatient wishes than I have.

A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil.

For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.

The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman; and there is only one relationship possible: faith.

In relationship to God one can not involve himself to a certain degree. God is precisely the contradiction to all that is 'to a certain degree'.

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

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.

to have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God.

Sitting calmly on a ship in fair weather is not a metaphor for having faith; but when the ship has sprung a leak, then enthusiastically to keep the ship afloat by pumping and not to seek the harbor--that is the metaphor for having faith. (Concluding Unscientific Postscript)