"I would have perished had I not perished."
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Soren Kierkegaard quotes (page 21 of 25)
496 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?"
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"The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted."
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"Christians remind me of schoolboys who want to look up the answers to their math problems in the back of the book rather than work them through."
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"An individual in despair despairs over something. . . . In despairing over something, he really despair[s] over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper. . . . To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself-this is the formula for all despair."
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"Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular."
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"Intelligence has got the upper hand to such an extent that it transforms the real task into an unreal trick and reality into a play."
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"Men are not on such intimate terms with the sublime that they really can believe in it"
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"Do you know of any more overwhelming and humbling expression for God's condescension and extravagance towards us human beings than that He places Himself, so to say, on the same level of choice with the world, just so that we may be able to choose; that God, if language dare speak thus, woos humankind - that He, the eternally strong one, woos sapless humanity? Yet, how insignificant is the young lover's choice between her pursuers by comparison with this choice between God and the world."
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"My sorrow is my castle."
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"I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably blissful, when it is absent, I long for it more vehemently than does the lover for his object."
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"Sleeping is the height of genius"
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"It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, "No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer.""
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"It is intelligent to ask two questions: (1) Is it possible? (2) Can I do it?. But it is unintelligent to ask these questions: (1) Is it real? (2) Has my neighbor done it?"
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"Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world?"
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"Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is united is passion, and faith is a passion."
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"If someone who wanted to learn to dance were to say: For centuries, one generation after the other has learned the positions, and it is high time that I take advantage of this and promptly begin with the quadrille--people would presumably laugh a little at him, but in the world of spirit this is very plausible. What, then, is education? I believed it is the course the individual goes through in order to catch up with himself, and the person who will not go through this course is not much helped by being born in the most enlightened age."
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"Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element."
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"To be a saint is to will the one thing."
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"To the frivolous Christianity is certainly not glad tidings, for it wishes first of all to make them serious."
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