“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”

— Søren Kierkegaard

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”

—Soren Kierkegaard

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

—Søren Kierkegaard

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” ”

— Søren Kirkegaard 

This is Why It's Hard to Tell People You Believe in God

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“To stand on one leg and prove God’s existence is a very different thing from going on one’s knees and thanking Him.” -Soren Kierkegaard

It’s hard to tell people you believe in god because everyone assumes you are this first person. Religious people are crazy and illogical. 

As a philosopher I feel entirely incapable of standing on one leg and proving that anything exists, much less God. My brain doesn’t work this way. In philosophy you learn to see the holes in every argument and proceed by negation. 

This scares a lot of religious people because it seems like doubt. It’s not doubt. Doubt is continuing to believe arguments you know are flawed, or to investigate them to see if they are flawed because you are scared you will lose the truth. 

You cannot lose Truth. If you chase the truth you don’t have to be scared about losing your beliefs because if your beliefs are True you’ll just arrive back at them and if your beliefs aren’t true you’ll figure that out. If you believe in God, I have to believe he wouldn’t fault you for choosing a path that isn’t hardcore Christianity because no matter what you are doing, if you are seeking him, you won’t find anything else. 

If you never explore your beliefs, I feel like that is almost an insult to god. In that sense, the god you believe in is arbitrary, just the result of the lottery of where and when you were born. You just manage to hold on to something you were given, rather than really knowing why THIS god is the one you believe in. I don’t think it’s flattering to have someone win you in a lottery. I think it’s flattering to have someone find you because you are what they were looking for.

“The majority of men ... live and die under the impression that life is simply a matter of understanding more and more, and that if it were granted to them to live longer, that life would continue to be one long continuous growth in understanding. How many of them ever experience the maturity of discovering that there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.”

—Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, from Kierkegaard at 200. [New York Times]

“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' —that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”

—Søren Kierkegaard, from ‘Either/Or’

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.”

—Soren Kierkegaard

“. . . melancholy is sin, really it is a sin as great as any, for it is the sin of not willing deeply and sincerely, and this is a mother to all sins . . . physicians cannot cure it; only the spirit can cure it, for it lies in the spirit, and when the spirit finds itself all small sorrows vanish, those reasons which in the view of some produce melancholy -- that one cannot find oneself in the world, that one comes to the world both too late and too early, that one cannot find one's place in life; but for the person who owns himself eternally, it is neither too early nor too late that he comes to the world, and the person who possesses himself in his eternal validity will surely find his significance in life.”

—Judge Wilhelm, Either/Or

“When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

—Søren Kierkegaard

“If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or do not marry, you will regret both; Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it, weep over them, you will also regret that; laugh at the world’s follies or weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it, believe her not, you will also regret that; believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both; whether you believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both. Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will also regret that; hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum and substance of all philosophy.”

—Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

“Soprattutto, non perdere la voglia di camminare: io, camminando ogni giorno, raggiungo uno stato di benessere e mi lascio alle spalle ogni malanno; i pensieri migliori li ho avuti mentre camminavo, e non conosco pensiero così gravoso da non poter essere lasciato alle spalle con una camminata […] perciò basta continuare a camminare, e andrà tutto bene.”

—Søren Kierkegaard
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