Quote

This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.

Soren Kierkegaard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Paradox
Discover
Ultimate
Cannot
Thought
Something
Think
Thinking

More quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

Image
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The resolving of the ethical, is freedom the negative resolution also has this, but the freedom, blank and bare, is as if tongue-tied, hard to express, and generally has something hard in its nature. Falling in love, however, promptly sets it to music, even if this composition contains a very difficult passage.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
I divide my time as follows: half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Jurists say that a capital crime submerges all lesser crimes and so it is with faith. Its absurdity makes all petty difficultiesvanish.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
It doesn't occur to me at this moment to say more another time, perhaps tomorrow, I may have more to say, but always the same thing and about the same, for only gypsies, robber gangs and swindlers follow the adage that where a person has once been he is never to go again.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Father in Heaven! When the thought of thee wakes in our hearts let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The only analogy I have before me is Socrates. My task is a Socratic task, to revise the definition of what it is to be a Christian. For my part I do not call myself a Christian (thus keeping the ideal free), but I am able to make it evident that the others are still less than I.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
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.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition, and traditions and customs are like the wind and weather, altogether incalculable.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
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?
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner put yourself in his place so that you may understand . . . what he learns and the way he understands it.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
I have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything I have, I believe, the courage to fight against everything but I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own anything.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The more men believe an idea to be true the greater the likelihood that the idea is mistaken. Those who are right usually stand alone.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
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