Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard
During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.
I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.
One can advise comfortably from a safe port.
If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.
Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic if it is pulled out I shall die.
Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.
I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
Once you label me you negate me.
People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.
Don't forget to love yourself.
What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.
The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.
