Søren Kierkegaard was one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century and a major precursor of existential philosophy. His reflections on choice, anxiety, despair, love, and faith continue to raise profound questions about human existence.
1. “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
2. “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
3. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily; not to dare is to lose oneself.”
4. “The door of happiness opens outward.”
5. “Prayer does not change God, but changes the one who prays.”
6. “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”
7. “The crowd is untruth.”
8. “Subjectivity is truth.”
9. “The greatest danger, that of losing oneself, can occur so quietly that it seems as though nothing has happened.”
10. “Despair is a sickness of the spirit, a sickness of the self.”
11. “To refuse to be oneself is a form of despair.”
12. “Being oneself means becoming the person one is called to be.”
13. “Possibility is the weightiest of all categories.”
14. “Whoever has learned to be truly anxious has learned the most important thing.”
15. “Without risk, there is no faith.”
16. “Faith begins precisely where thinking reaches its limit.”
17. “To believe is to lose reason in order to gain God.”
18. “The knight of faith walks alone.”
19. “Love is a matter of conscience.”
20. “Love does not seek its own.”
21. “To love one’s neighbor is to love all human beings.”
22. “The life of love is hidden, but it is known by its fruits.”
23. “Hope is a passion for the possible.”
24. “Repetition and recollection are the same movement, but in opposite directions.”
25. “Recollection turns toward a reality that has been lost; repetition seeks a reality to be lived again.”
26. “One cannot escape choosing, because refusing to choose is itself a choice.”
27. “Either-or: choice is an unavoidable part of existence.”
28. “Truth is not merely something you know, but something you live.”
29. “Being a single individual is harder than hiding in the crowd.”
30. “Life is not a problem solved once and for all, but a task each person must undertake.”
Author: Vasil Stoyanov