Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves.

Ce n'est pas le chemin qui est difficile, c'est le difficile qui est le chemin.

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.

Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it.

I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.

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?

It is impossible to exist without passion

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.

The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. That is what I now recognize as the most important thing.

why bother remembering a past that cannot be made into a present?

Happiness is the greatest hiding place for despair.

On the secretly blushing cheek is reflected the glow of the heart

Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief, but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief that sustains thought and holds the world together.

Hope is a passion for the possible.

And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.

My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.

Now, with God's help, I shall become myself.

Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!

The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.

The only intelligent tactical response to life's horror is to laugh defiantly at it