Tao Te Ching
Søren Kierkegaard
1813 – 1855 CE
"The first existentialist philosopher"
Poet, theologian, social critic, philosopher and religious writer; Kierkegaard became a major influence on contemporary world culture. In the world of psychology, he founded Christian, humanistic, and existential schools inspiring therapists and theorists like Viktor Frankl, Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, and Rollo May. In the field of literature, he influenced and inspired authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Hermann Hesse, W. H. Auden, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, J.D. Salinger and John Updike. His theological/philosophical influence extended to Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, and Martin Heidegger. Kierkegaard emphasized experience over theory, personal life over "herd instinct," and Christianity as love rather than organization and dogma.
Eras
Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)Unlisted Sources
Edifying Discourses
Either/Or (1843)
Journals
New York Times article
Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Preparations for a Christian Life
Works of Love
Quotes by Søren Kierkegaard (14 quotes)
“People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”
from Journals
Comments: Click to comment
“Let us worship God again in simplicity instead of making a fool of him in splendid edifices.”
from Preparations for a Christian Life
Comments: Click to comment
“The intention of Christianity was to change everything... [but] Christianity has done away with Christianity without being aware of it”
from Preparations for a Christian Life
Comments: Click to comment
“Paradox is the source of the thinker's passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.”
from Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Comments: Click to comment
“Aristotle’s view that philosophy begins with wonder, not as in our day with doubt, is a positive point of departure for philosophy. Indeed, the world will no doubt learn that it does not do to begin with the negative, and the reason for success up to the present is that philosophers have never quite surrendered to the negative and thus have never earnestly done what they have said. They merely flirt with doubt.”
from Journals
Comments: Click to comment
“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
from Either/Or (1843)
Comments: Click to comment
“This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings; they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin.”
from Either/Or (1843)
Comments: Click to comment
“Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men’s thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lace-makers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful... Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy.”
from Either/Or (1843)
Comments: Click to comment
“He who strives with the present strives with a single thing against which he can use his entire strength. He who fights with the future has more dangerous enemy. He can never remain ignorant about himself; he fights with himself.”
from Edifying Discourses
Comments: Click to comment
“The truth must essentially be regarded as in conflict with this world; the world has never been so good, and will never become so good that the majority will desire the truth.”
from Works of Love
Comments: Click to comment
“Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self. The self is not the relation but consists in the fact.”
Comments: Click to comment
“The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: Create silence.”
from New York Times article
Comments: Click to comment
“Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.”
Comments: Click to comment
Quotes about Søren Kierkegaard (5 quotes)
“Kierkegaard was by far the most profound thinker of the last century. Kierkegaard was a saint.”
Comments: Click to comment
“People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”
Comments: Click to comment
“the fact that the great Kierkegaard was never a Kierkegaardian, let alone an Existentialist, cheers one bush-league intellectual's heart to no end, never fails to reaffirm his faith in a cosmic poetic justice, if not a cosmic Santa Claus.”
Comments: Click to comment
“For all its critical analysis, philosophy has not yet managed to root out its psychopaths. What do we have psychiatric diagnosis for? That grizzler Kierkegaard also belongs in this galere.”
Comments: Click to comment
“If we think of Kierkegaard, of Nietzsche, of Hölderlin, we see them standing alone, outside of history. They are spotlighted by their intensity, and the background is all darkness. They intersect history, but are not a part of it. There is something anti-history about such men; they are not subject to time, accident and death, but their intensity is a protest against it.”
Comments: Click to comment
Comments (0)