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...even the richest personality is nothing before he has chosen himself, and on the other hand even what one might call the poorest personality is everything when he has chosen himself for the great thing is not to be this or that but to be oneself, and this everyone can be if he wills it.

Soren Kierkegaard

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Soren Kierkegaard
Age: 42 †
Born: 1813
Born: January 1
Died: 1855
Died: January 1
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Theologian
Writer
København
Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Victor Eremita
Climacus
Anti-Climacus
Sören Aaby Kierkegaard
Thing
Call
Everyone
Wills
Hands
Richest
Might
Poorest
Everything
Chosen
Nothing
Oneself
Great
Personality
Even
Hand

More quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

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The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.
Soren Kierkegaard
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There can be no faith without risk.
Soren Kierkegaard
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When you open the door which you shut in order to pray to God, the first person you meet as you go out is your neighbour whom you shall love. Wonderful!
Soren Kierkegaard
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Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored therefore they created human beings.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Busyness, keeping up with others, hustling hither and yon, makes it almost impossible for an individual to form a heart.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Choose to be who you are. . . The individual who would become a person must at some point take over his entire being - must, that is, choose herself.
Soren Kierkegaard
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...the reason for [this age's] anxiety and unrest is because in one direction, 'truth' increases in scope and quantity - via science and technology - while in the other, certainty and confidence steadily decline. Our age is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good.
Soren Kierkegaard
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...the greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally - weaknesses, fears, and all. For God loves obedience more than good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too often made under the guise of weakness.
Soren Kierkegaard
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To Dare is to risk losing your foothold for a moment, Not to Dare is to risk losing yourself.
Soren Kierkegaard
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If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.
Soren Kierkegaard
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O Luther, you had 95 theses . . . The matter is far more terrible-there is only one thesis. The Christianity of the New Testament does not exist at all. Here there is nothing to reform.
Soren Kierkegaard
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If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence its giddiness, like that which comes from gazing down into an infinite abyss, is infinite.
Soren Kierkegaard
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It is not a gain that guilt should be wholly forgotten. On the contrary, it is loss and perdition. But it is a gain to win an inner intensity of heart through a deeper and deeper inner sorrowing over guilt.
Soren Kierkegaard
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No one may pride himself at being more than an individual, and no one despondently think that he is not an individual.
Soren Kierkegaard
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With the daguerreotype, everyone will be able to have their portrait taken . . . and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same.
Soren Kierkegaard
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What labels me, negates me.
Soren Kierkegaard
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It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Who is also aware of the tremendous risk involved in faith - when he nevertheless makes the leap of faith - this [is] subjectivity ... at its height.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Job endured everything - until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.
Soren Kierkegaard