47 Quotes By Soren Kierkegaard


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.
Soren Kierkegaard on age

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.
Soren Kierkegaard on age

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
Soren Kierkegaard on change

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
Soren Kierkegaard on change

It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.
Soren Kierkegaard on dating

Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.
Soren Kierkegaard on death

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.
Soren Kierkegaard on death

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.
Soren Kierkegaard on dreams

Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kierkegaard on experience

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

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

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Soren Kierkegaard on freedom

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Soren Kierkegaard on 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.
Soren Kierkegaard on god

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
Soren Kierkegaard on god

If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
Soren Kierkegaard on god

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
Soren Kierkegaard on god

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.
Soren Kierkegaard on god

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
Soren Kierkegaard on good

Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.
Soren Kierkegaard on good