All essential knowledge relates to existence, or only such knowledge as has an essential relationship to existence is essential knowledge. Soren Kierkegaard More Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard More Quotes From Soren Kierkegaard Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further. Soren Kierkegaard motivationalinspirationallife In the end, therefore, money will be the one thing people will desire, which is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am saved...He would die with nothing to reproach himself with, and under the impression that if only he had had the money he might really have lived and might even have achieved something great. Soren Kierkegaard girlbeautifulart The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering. Soren Kierkegaard differencesmenideas The truth is a trap: you cannot get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you. Soren Kierkegaard trapstruth-is The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself. Soren Kierkegaard despairform It is easy to see, though it scarcely needs to be pointed out, since it is involved in the fact that Reason is set aside, that faith is not a form of knowledge; for all knowledge is either a knowledge of the eternal, excluding the temporal and historical as indifferent, or it is pure historical knowledge. No knowledge can have for its object the absurdity that the eternal is the historical. Soren Kierkegaard historicalfaithknowledge 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. Soren Kierkegaard sacrificechristiandoe This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness...they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die. Soren Kierkegaard shadowsoullife A human being is a spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation. Soren Kierkegaard spiritselfrelation Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this? Soren Kierkegaard midnightlittlesthinking People try to persuade us that the objections against Christianity spring from doubt. That is a complete misunderstanding. The objections against Christianity spring from insubordination, the dislike of obedience, rebellion against all authority. As a result, people have hitherto been beating the air in their struggle against objections, because they have fought intellectually with doubt instead of fighting morally with rebellion. Soren Kierkegaard fightingstrugglespring What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears? Soren Kierkegaard what-iflaughtertears In the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd. He only sees each individual Soren Kierkegaard crowdseyespirit It is modest of the nightingale not to require anyone to listen to it; but it is also proud of the nightingale not to care whether any one listens to it or not. Soren Kierkegaard modestcareproud You wanted God's ideas about what was best for you to coincide with your ideas, but you also wanted him to be the almighty Creator of heaven and earth so that he could properly fulfill your wish. And yet, if he were to share your ideas, he would cease to be the almighty Father. Soren Kierkegaard heavenfatherideas There are two kinds of geniuses. The characteristic of the one is roaring, but the lightning is meagre and rarely strikes; the other kind is characterized by reflection by which it constrains itself or restrains the roaring. But the lightning is all the more intense; with the speed and sureness of lightning it hits the selected particular points - and is fatal. Soren Kierkegaard lightningreflectiontwo May new sufferings torment your soul. Soren Kierkegaard soulsufferingmay The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about. Soren Kierkegaard phariseesyearsthinking God is present in the moment of choice, not in order to watch but in order to be chosen. Therefore, each person must choose. Terrible is the battle, in a person's innermost being, between God and the world. The crowning risk involved lies in the possession of choice. Soren Kierkegaard christianorderlying Death is not earnest in the same way the eternal is. To the earnestness of death belongs precisely that remarkable capacity for awakening, that resonance of a profound mockery which, detached from the thought of the eternal, is an empty and often brash jest, but together with the thought of the eternal is just what it should be, utterly different from the insipid solemness which least of all captures and holds a thought with tension like that of death. Soren Kierkegaard differenttogetherprofound
