Søren Kierkegaard Zitate: 39 Weisheiten über das Leben, die Freiheit und das Wesen des Menschen

Søren Kierkegaard: 348 Zitate 94 Gefällt mir

Søren Kierkegaard Berühmte Zitate

„Verstehen kann man das Leben rückwärts; leben muß man es aber vorwärts.“

Søren Kierkegaard

„Es ist ganz wahr, was die Philosophie sagt, daß das Leben rückwärts verstanden werden muß. Aber darüber vergißt man den andern Satz, daß vorwärts gelebt werden muß.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Die Tagebücher. Deutsch von Theodor Haecker. Brenner-Verlag 1923, S. 203 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=8D-ehrAsTPAC&q=r%C3%BCckw%C3%A4rts "Det er ganske sandt, hvad Philosophien siger, at Livet maa forstaaes baglaends. Men derover glemmer man den anden Saetning, at det maa leves forlaends." - 1843, Journalen JJ 167, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter 18: Journalerne EE, FF, GG, HH, JJ, KK. Søren Kierkegaard Forskningscenteret, 2001, S. 194, books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=w-rWAAAAMAAJ&q=bagl%C3%A6nds
Tagebücher 1834–1855

„Das Leben ist kein zu lösendes Problem, sondern eine zu erlebende Realität.“

Søren Kierkegaard

„Die Menschen fordern Redefreiheit als Ausgleich für die Gedankenfreiheit, die sie selten nutzen.“

Søren Kierkegaard

„Es gibt zwei Möglichkeiten, sich täuschen zu lassen. Man soll glauben, was nicht wahr ist; Das andere ist, sich zu weigern zu glauben, was wahr ist.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Zitate über Leben von Søren Kierkegaard

„Es gilt, eine Wahrheit zu finden, die Wahrheit für mich ist, die Idee zu entdecken, für die ich leben und sterben will.“

Søren Kierkegaard

1. Aug. 1835, zitiert in: Die Leidenschaft des Religiösen, Lieselotte Richter (Hrsg.), Reclam Verlag, Ditzingen, 1968, Einleitung S. 4 "Det [...] gjælder om at finde en Sandhed, som er Sandhed for mig, at finde den Idee, for hvilken jeg vil leve og døe." - Journalen AA, http://www.sk.ku.dk/sks17.asp
Tagebücher 1834–1855

„Die Sorge ist das Verhältnis zum Leben.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Die Krankheit zum Tode

Die Krankheit zum Tode Original dän.: "Bekymringen er Forholdet til Livet [...]."]
Die Krankheit zum Tode

„Für drei Dinge danke ich Gott - 1) Daß kein lebendes Wesen mir sein Dasein verdankt […].“

Søren Kierkegaard

13. Dez. 1854, von Karl Kraus zitiert in "Die Fackel" Band 27, S. 26, books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=YoMsAQAAIAAJ&q=Dasein+verdankt " For tre Ting takker jeg Gud / 1) At intet levende Væsen skylder mig Tilværelse." - Journalerne NB31-NB36. København Gad 2009, S. 416 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=WzdRAAAAYAAJ&q=skylder
Tagebücher 1834–1855

Zitate über Menschen von Søren Kierkegaard

„Ich sehe mich zuweilen umgeben von einer greulich phrasenhaften Gestalt - ich möchte sie ein Kompendium eines Menschen nennen - einen kurzen Inbegriff - einen beliebig langen dünnen Mann, den jedoch die Natur gleichsam bei jedem Fortschritt aufgehalten hat […] und jede Rede beginnt er mit einem vielversprechenden Vordersatz, so dass man in der Hoffnung bereits einen ungeheuren Maßstab anlegt, aber siehe, es kommt zu nichts.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Pap. II A 609

„Die Menschen haben, wie es scheint, die Sprache nicht empfangen, um die Gedanken zu verbergen, sondern um zu verbergen, daß sie keine Gedanken haben.“

Søren Kierkegaard

„Was ist ein Dichter? Ein unglücklicher Mensch, der heiße Schmerzen in seinem Herzen trägt, dessen Lippen aber so geartet sind, daß, während Seufzer und Geschrei ihnen entströmen, diese dem fremden Ohr wie schöne Musik ertönen..“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Entweder – Oder

Entweder - Oder, 1. Teil zeno. org

zeno.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009194533 Original dän.: "Hvad er en Digter? Et ulykkeligt Menneske, der gjemmer dybe Qvaler i sit hjerte, men vis Læber ere dannede saaledes, at idet Sukket og Skriget strømme ud over dem, lyde de som en skjøn Musik."
Entweder - Oder

„Der Freiheit Inhalt, intellektuell gesehen, ist Wahrheit, und die Wahrheit macht den Menschen frei. Eben darum aber ist die Wahrheit ein Werk der Freiheit dergestalt, dass sie fort und fort die Wahrheit erzeugt.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Der Begriff Angst

Der Begriff Angst, Werke I. In neuer Übertragung und mit Kommentar von Liselotte Richter, Rowohlt Klassiker/ RK 71

Søren Kierkegaard Zitate und Sprüche

„Es ist keine Kunst, ein Mädchen zu verführen, aber ein Glück, eines zu finden, das es wert ist, verführt zu werden.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Tagebuch des Verführers zeno. org

Original dän.: "[D]et er ingen Kunst at forføre en Pige, men en Lykke at finde En, der er vært at forføre."

Über Glück , Mädchen , Über Kunst

„Je weniger Geist, desto weniger Angst.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Der Begriff Angst

Der Begriff Angst (Original dän.: "[J]o mindre Aand jo mindre Angest."}
Der Begriff Angst

Über Angst

„Nie lasse man sich auf eine Ehe ein. Die Eheleute geloben einander »auf ewig« Liebe. Wenn die Betreffenden stattdessen »bis Ostern« sagten, sagten sie etwas, was man vielleicht halten könnte.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Über Liebe , Über Ehe

„Die Funktion des Gebets besteht nicht darin, Gott zu beeinflussen, sondern die Natur des Betenden zu verändern.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Über Gott , Über natur

„Das Vergleichen ist das Ende des Glücks und der Anfang der Unzufriedenheit.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Über Glück

„Nach Veränderung rufen alle, die sich langweilen.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Entweder – Oder

Entweder - Oder, 1. Teil zeno. org

zeno.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009194746 Original dän.: "Paa Forandring raaber Alle, der kjede sig."
Entweder - Oder

Veränderung

„Die Christenheit hat, ohne es recht selber zu merken, das Christentum abgeschafft; daraus ergibt sich, daß, wenn etwas geschehen soll, versucht werden muß, das Christentum wieder in die Christenheit einzuführen.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Einübung im Christentum, Werke Bd. 12 S. 52f.

Über Ehe

„Aber Existieren ist etwas ganz anderes als Wissen.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Wissen

„Der Augenblick ist jenes Zweideutige, darin Zeit und Ewigkeit einander berühren.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Der Begriff Angst

Der Begriff Angst Original dän.: "Øieblikket er hiint Tvetydige, hvori Tiden og Evigheden berøre hinanden [...]."
Der Begriff Angst

Zeit

„Verheirate dich, du wirst es bereuen; verheirate dich nicht, du wirst es auch bereuen.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Entweder – Oder

Entweder - Oder, 1. Teil zeno.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009194533 Original dän.: "Gift Dig, Du vil fortryde det; gift Dig ikke, Du vil ogsaa fortryde det [...]." -
Entweder - Oder

„Die Leute verstehen mich so schlecht, dass sie nicht einmal meine Beschwerde verstehen, dass sie mich nicht verstehen.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Verstehen

„Die häufigste Form der Verzweiflung ist, nicht zu sein, wer du bist.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Verzweiflung

„Dass das Weib sinnlicher ist als der Mann, das zeigt sogleich ihre leibliche Bildung an.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Der Begriff Angst

Der Begriff Angst Original dän.: "At Qvinden er mere sandselig end Manden, viser strax hendes legemlige Organisation."
Der Begriff Angst

Über Männer , Über Bildung

„Was aber ist denn dies mein Selbst? Wollte ich von einem ersten Augenblick sprechen, einem ersten Ausdruck dafür, so ist meine Antwort: es ist das Abstrakteste von allem, das doch in sich zugleich das Konkreteste von allem ist - es ist die Freiheit.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Entweder – Oder

Entweder - Oder, 2. Teil zeno. org

Entweder - Oder, 2. Teil zeno.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009194754 Original dän.: "Men hvad er da dette mit Selv? Dersom jeg vilde tale om et foerste Øieblik, et første Udtryk derfor, saa er mit Svar: det er det Abstrakteste af Alt, der dog tillige i sig er det Concreteste af Alt -- det er Friheden." -
Entweder - Oder

Freiheit

„Was wird geschehen? Was wird die Zukunft bringen? Ich weiß nicht; ich ahne nichts. Wenn eine Spinne sich von einem festen Punkte aus in ihre Konsequenzen hinabstürzt, da sieht sie vor sich beständig einen leeren Raum, in welchem sie nirgends Fuß findet, wie sehr sie auch zappeln mag. Geradeso geht es mir. Vorn immer ein leerer Raum; was mich vorwärts treibt, ist eine Konsequenz, deren erster Anstoß hinter mir liegt. Dieses Leben ist ein verkehrtes und schreckliches, nicht zum Aushalten.“

Søren Kierkegaard buch Entweder – Oder

Entweder - Oder, 1. Teil zeno. org

Entweder - Oder, 1. Teil zeno.org http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009194533 Original dän.: "Hvad skal der komme? Hvad skal Fremtiden bringe? Jeg veed det ikke, jeg ahner intet. Naar en Edderkop fra et vast Punkt styrter sig ned i sine Consequentser, da seer den bestandig et tomt Rum foran sig, hvori den ikke kan finde Fodfæste, hvormeget den end sprætter. Saaledes gaaer det mig; hvad der driver meg frem er en Consequents, der ligger bag mig. Dette Liv er bagvendt og rædsomt, ikke til at udholde."
Entweder - Oder

Zukunft , Über Ehe

„Denn wer unendlich resigniert hat, ist sich selber genug.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Furcht und Zittern

Original dän.: "[T]hi den, der har resigneret uendeligt, han er sig selv nok."

„Alles ist eine Modesache: Gottesfurcht ist eine Modesache und die Liebe und die Krinoline und ein Ring in der Nase.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Stadien auf des Lebens Weg, In vino veritas

Über Liebe

„Sehnsucht ist die Nabelschnur des höheren Lebens.“

Søren Kierkegaard

8. Feb. 1839, in: Buch des Richters - Seine Tagebücher 1833-1855. Im Auszug aus dem Dänischen von Hermann Gottsched, Diederichs, Leipzig 1905. S. 19 "Længsel er det høiere Livs Navlestreng." - Søren Kierkegaards Papirer. Band 2. Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1910, S. 140 books.google.de http://books.google.de/books?id=xssuAQAAIAAJ&q=navlestreng
Tagebücher 1834–1855

Über Bücher

„Fegt mich weg!“

Søren Kierkegaard

Letzte Worte, 11. November 1855; zitiert in: Universitas, Band 63, Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008 S. 1098

„Wiederholung und Erinnerung sind die gleiche Bewegung, nur in entgegengesetzter Richtung; denn dasjenige, woran man sich erinnert, ist gewesen, wird rückwärts wiederholt, während die eigentliche Wiederholung eine Erinnerung in vorwärtiger Richtung ist.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Erinnerung

„Wenn man die Philosophen von der Wirklichkeit reden hört, so ist das oft ebenso irreführend, wie wenn man im Schaufenster eines Trödlers auf einem Schild die Worte liest: Hier wird gerollt. Wollte man mit seiner Wäsche kommen und sie rollen lassen, so wäre man angeführt. Der Schild hängt nur zum Verkauf da.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Wirklichkeit

„Es ist meiner Seele zuwider, das zu tun, was so oft geschieht, nämlich nicht menschlich von dem Großen zu reden, als wären einige Jahrtausende ein ungeheurer Abstand; ich rede am liebsten menschlich davon, als wäre es gestern, und lasse nur die Größe selbst den Abstand sein.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Furcht und Zittern, S. 25 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZE8YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25
Furcht und Zittern

Über Liebe , Über Seele

„Aber Humor ist auch die Freude, welche die Welt überwunden hat.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Zitiert bei Peter L. Berger, p. 189 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=qOjmBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA189&dq=freude
"Men Humoren er ogsaa den Glæde, der har seiret over Verden." - 1837 / 672 U.D. Papirer, Band 2, Gyldendal 1910, p. 240 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=5PLjrEWC14wC&q=Men+Humoren+er+ogsaa+den+Gl%C3%A6de
Tagebücher 1834–1855

Freude , Über die Welt

„Der schmerzhafteste Zustand des Seins ist das Erinnern an die Zukunft, insbesondere an die, die Sie niemals haben werden.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Zukunft

„Zwischen Verstehen und Wollen liegen die Entschuldigungen und Ausflüchte.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Verstehen

Diese Übersetzung wartet auf eine Überprüfung. Ist es korrekt?

„Die Bibel ist sehr leicht zu verstehen. Aber wir Christen sind ein Haufen von intriganten Schwindlern. Wir geben vor, sie nicht verstehen zu können, weil wir genau wissen, dass wir, in dem Moment, in dem wir sie verstehen, verpflichtet sind nach ihr zu handeln.“

Søren Kierkegaard

Wissen , Verstehen

Søren Kierkegaard: Zitate auf Englisch

“Knowledge can in part be set aside, and one can then go further in order to collect new; the natural scientist can set aside insects and flowers and then go further, but if the existing person sets aside the decision in existence, it is eo ipso lost, and he is changed.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Papers VI B 66, 1845
1840s

“You have surely noticed among schoolboys, that the one that is regarded by all as the boldest is the one who has no fear of his father, who dares to say to the others, "Do you think I am afraid of him?" On the other hand, if they sense that one of their number is actually and literally afraid of his father, they will readily ridicule him a little. Alas, in men’s fear-ridden rushing together into a crowd (for why indeed does a man rush into a crowd except because he is afraid!) there, too, it is a mark of boldness not to be afraid, not even of God. And if someone notes that there is an individual outside the crowd who is really and truly afraid – not of the crowd, but of God, he is sure to be the target of some ridicule. The ridicule is usually glossed over somewhat and it is said: a man should love God. Yes, to be sure, God knows that man’s highest consolation is that God is love and that man is permitted to love Him. But let us not become too forward, and foolishly, yes, blasphemously, dismiss the tradition of our fathers, established by God Himself: that really and truly a man should fear God. This fear is known to the man who is himself conscious of being an individual, and thereby is conscious of his eternal responsibility before God.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart, 1847 Steere translation p. 196-197
1840s, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), Purity of Heart (1847)

“It is love that leniently and mercifully says: I forgive you everything-if you are forgiven only little, then it is because you love only little. Justice severely sets the boundary and says: No further! This is the limit. For you there is no forgiveness, and there is nothing more to be said. P. 172”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1850s, Two Discourses at Friday Communion (August 1851)

“I assume that Luther has risen from the grave. For several years now he has been living among us but incognito; he has been observing the lives we lead, has been scrutinizing everyone in this regard and me also. I assume that he speaks to me one day and says, “Are you a believer? Do you have faith?” Anyone who knows me as an author will see that I would perhaps be the one who might come off best of all in such and examination, for I have continually said, “I do not have faith” – I have expressed, as does a bird’s alarmed flight before a storm, that there is mischief brewing here, “I do not have faith.” So I should say to Luther, “No, dear Luther, I have at least shown the respect of saying: I do not have faith.” However, I shall not press this, but, just as others call themselves Christians and believers, I, too, shall say, “I am a believer,” for otherwise what I wish to be cleared up will not be cleared up.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard buch For Self-Examination

Soren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, Hong p. 17-18
1850s, For Self-Examination (1851), What is Required in Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the Mirror of the Word?

“That a woman is presented as a teacher, as a prototype of piety, cannot amaze anyone who knows that piety or godliness is fundamentally womanliness. … from a woman you learn concern for the one thing needful, from Mary, sister of Lazarus, who sat silent at Christ’s feet with her heart’s choice: the one thing needful. P. 149”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1850s, An Upbuilding Discourse December 20, 1850

“If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. … We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. … Which deception is more dangerous?”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Quelle: 1840s, Works of Love (1847), p. 5

“My doubt goes like this: How could the Loving One have the heart to let human beings become so guilty that they got his murder on their consciences?”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Quelle: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), p. 63

“How could one speak properly about love if you were forgotten, you God of love, source of all love in heaven and on earth; you who spared nothing but in love gave everything; you who are love, so that one who loves is what he is only by being in you.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

opening prayer, p. 3
1840s, Works of Love (1847)

“I have needed God every day to defend myself against the abundance of thoughts.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

PV, p. 73; SV1, XIII, p. 559; Jon Bartley Stewart. 2008. Johan Ludvig Heiberg: Philosopher, Littérateur, Dramaturge, and Political Thinker. Museum Tusculanum Press.
Disputed

“This is the truth of the matter. In every human being there is a capacity, the capacity for knowledge. And every person - the most knowing and the most limited - is in his knowledge far beyond what he is in his life or what his life expresses. Yet this misrelation is of little concern to us. On the contrary, we set a high price on knowledge, and everyone strives for this knowledge more and more. "But," says the sensible person, "one must be careful about the direction one's knowing takes. If my knowing turns inward, against me, if I do not take care to prevent this, then knowing is the most intoxicating thing there is, the way to become completely intoxicated, since there then occurs an intoxicating confusion between the knowledge and the knower, so that the knower himself will resemble, will be, that which is known. If your knowing takes such a turn and you yield to it, it will soon end with your tumbling like a drunk man into actuality, plunging yourself recklessly into drunken action without giving the understanding and sagacity the time to take into proper consideration what is prudent, what is advantageous, what will pay. This is why we, the sober ones, warn you, not against knowing or against expanding your knowledge, but against letting your knowledge take an inward direction, for then it is intoxicating." This is thieves' jargon. It says that it is one's knowledge that, by taking the inward direction in this way, intoxicates, rather than that in precisely this way it makes manifest that one is intoxicated, intoxicated in one's attachment to this earthly life, the temporal, the secular, and the selfish. And this is what one fears, fears that one's knowing, turned inward, toward oneself, will expose the intoxication there, will expose that one prefers to remain in this state, will wrench one out of this state and as a result of such a step will make it impossible for one to slip back into that adored state, into intoxication. p. 118”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1850s, Judge For Yourselves! 1851 (1876)

“If one prefers to have little with blessing, to have truth with concern, to suffer instead of exulting over imagined victories, then one presumably will not be disposed to praise the knowledge, as if what it bestows were at all proportionate to the trouble it causes, although one would not therefore deny that through its pain it educates a person, if he is honest enough to want to be educated rather than to be deceived, out of the multiplicity to seek the one, out of abundance to seek the one thing needful, as this is plainly and simply offered precisely according to the need for it.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard buch Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

Søren Kierkegaard, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong p. 128-129
1840s, Upbuilding Discourses (1843-1844)

“Married people pledge love for each other throughout eternity. Well, now, that is easy enough but does not mean very much, for if one is finished with time one is probably finished with eternity. If, instead of saying "throughout eternity," the couple would say, "until Easter, until next May Day," then what they say would make some sense, for then they would be saying something and also something they perhaps could carry out.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Hong, 1987/2013. p. 296
1840s, Either/Or (1843)

“There was a time, and not so long ago, when one could score a success also here with a bit of irony, which compensated for all other deficiencies and helped one get through the world rather respectably, gave one the appearance of being cultured, of having a perspective on life, an understanding of the world, and to the initiated marked one as a member of an extensive intellectual freemasonry. Occasionally we still meet a representative of that vanished age who has preserved that subtle, sententious, equivocally divulging smile, that air of an intellectual courtier with which he has made his fortune in his youth and upon which he had built his whole future in the hope that he had overcome the world. Ah, but it was an illusion! His watchful eye looks in vain for a kindred soul, and if his days of glory were not still a fresh memory for a few, his facial expression would be a riddle to the contemporary age, in which he lives as a stranger and foreigner. Our age demands more; it demands, if not lofty pathos then at least loud pathos, if not speculation then at least conclusions, if not truth then at least persuasion, if not integrity then at least protestations of integrity, if not feeling then at least verbosity of feelings. Therefore it also coins a totally different kind of privileged faces. It will not allow the mouth to be defiantly compressed or the upper lip to quiver mischievously; it demands that the mouth be open, for how, indeed, could one imagine a true and genuine patriot who is not delivering speeches; how could one visualize a profound thinker’s dogmatic face without a mouth able to swallow the whole world; how could one picture a virtuoso on the cornucopia of the living world without a gaping mouth? It does not permit one to stand still and to concentrate; to walk slowly is already suspicious; and how could one even put up with anything like that in the stirring period in which we live, in this momentous age, which all agree is pregnant with the extraordinary? It hates isolation; indeed, how could it tolerate a person’s having the daft idea of going through life alone-this age that hand in hand and arm in arm (just like itinerant journeymen and soldiers) lives for the idea of community.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Quelle: 1840s, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841), p. 246-247

“It has often been said that a reformation should begin with each man reforming himself. That, however, is not what actually happened, for the reformation produced a hero who paid God dearly enough for his position as hero. By joining up with him directly people buy cheap, indeed at bargain prices, what he had paid for so dearly; but they do not buy the highest of all things.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

The Present Age, by Søren Kierkegaard, 1846, Dru translation 1962, p. 56-57
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

“But on the other hand, the understanding, reflection, is also a gift of God. What shall one do with it, how dispose of it if one is not to use it? And if one then uses it in fear and trembling not for one’s own advantage but to serve the truth, if one uses it that way in fear and trembling and furthermore believing that it still is God who determines the issue in its eternal significance, venturing to trust in him, and with unconditional obedience yielding to what he makes use of it: is this not fear of God and serving God the way a person of reflection can, in the somewhat different way than the spontaneously immediate person, but perhaps more ardently. But if this is the case, does not a maieutic element enter into the relation to other man or to various other men. The maieutic is really only the expression for a superiority between man and man. That is exists cannot be denied-but existence presses far more powerfully upon the superior one precisely because he is a maieutic (because he has the responsibility) than upon the other. As far as I am concerned, there has been no lack of witnesses. All my upbuilding discourses are in fact in the form of direct communication. Consequently there can be a question only about this, something that has occupied me for a long time (already back in earlier journals): should I for one definitely explain myself as author, what I declare myself to be, how I from the beginning understood myself to be a religious author. But now is not the time to do it; I am also somewhat strained at the moment, I need more physical recreation.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

JP VI 6234 (Pap. IX A 222 1848)
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

“These two essays probably will essentially be able to interest only theologians.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Preface
1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849)

“Between God and man there is and remains an eternal, essential, qualitative difference. The paradoxical relationship (which, quite rightly, cannot be thought, but only believed) appears when God appoints a particular man to divine authority, in relation, be it carefully noted, to that which has entrusted to him.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Quelle: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), P. 99

“Job endured everything — until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1849
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

“If a person is unwilling to make a decisive resolution, if he wants to cheat God of the heart’s daring venture in which a person ventures way out and loses sight of all shrewdness and probability, indeed, takes leave of his senses or at least all his worldly mode of thinking, if instead of beginning with one step he almost craftily seeks to find out something, to have the infinite certainty changed into a finite certainty, then this discourse will not be able to benefit him. There is an upside-downness that wants to reap before it sows; there is a cowardliness that wants to have certainty before it begins. There is a hypersensitivity so copious in words that it continually shrinks from acting; but what would it avail a person if, double-minded and fork-tongued he wanted to dupe God, trap him in probability, but refused to understand the improbable, that one must lose everything in order to gain everything, and understand it so honestly that, in the most crucial moment, when his soul is already shuddering at the risk, he does not again leap to his own aid with the explanation that he has not yet fully made a resolution but merely wanted to feel his way. Therefore, all discussion of struggling with God in prayer, of the actual loss (since if pain of annihilation is not actually suffered, then the sufferer is not yet out upon the deep, and his scream is not the scream of danger but in the face of danger) and the figurative victory cannot have the purpose of persuading anyone or of converting the situation into a task for secular appraisal and changing God’s gift of grace to the venture into temporal small change for the timorous. It really would not help a person if the speaker, by his oratorical artistry, led him to jump into a half hour’s resolution, by the ardor of conviction started a fire in him so that he would blaze in a momentary good intention without being able to sustain a resolution or to nourish an intention as soon as the speaker stopped talking.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard buch Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong, One Who Prays Aright Struggles In Prayer and is Victorious-In That God is Victorious p. 380-381
1840s, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

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

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1841
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

“Confession should be only in secret before God, who knows everything anyway, and thus it could remain hidden in one‘s innermost being. But at a dinner – and a woman! A dinner-it is not some hidden, remote place, nor is the lighting dim, nor is the mood like that among graves, nor are the listeners silent or invisibly present.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Three Discourses at Friday Communion November 14, 1849 Hong translation 1997 P. 139
1840s, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (1849)

“Christ speaks of two debtors, one of whom owed much and the other little, and who both found forgiveness. He asks: Which of these two ought to love more? The answer: The one who has forgiven much. When you love much, you are forgiven much-and when you are forgiven much, you love much. See here the blessed recurrence of salvation in love! P. 176”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1850s, Two Discourses at Friday Communion (August 1851)

“If I tried to imagine the public as a particular person (for although some better individuals momentarily belong to the public they nevertheless have something concrete about them, which holds them in its grip even if they have not attained the supreme religious attitude), I should perhaps think of one of the Roman emperors, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxication of laughter, since the divine gift of wit is not earthly enough. And so for a change he wanders about, indolent rather than bad, but with a negative desire to dominate. Every one who has read the classical authors knows how many things a Caesar could try out in order to kill time. In the same way the public keeps a dog to amuse it. That dog is the sum of the literary world. If there is some one superior to the rest, perhaps even a great man, the dog is set on him and the fun begins. The dog goes for him, snapping and tearing at his coat-tails, allowing itself every possible ill-mannered familiarity – until the public tires, and says it may stop. That is an example of how the public levels. Their betters and superiors in strength are mishandled – and the dog remains a dog which even the public despises. The leveling is therefore done by a third party; a non-existent public leveling with the help of a third party which in its significance is less than nothing, being already more than leveled.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

The Present Age 1846 by Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Alexander Dru 1962, p. 65-66
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

“After a considerable walk through the forest, where I became acquainted with several of the little lakes I am so fond of, I came to Hestehaven and Lake Carl. Here is one of the most beautiful regions I have ever seen. The countryside is somewhat isolated and slopes steeply down to the lake, but with the beech forests growing on either side, it is not barren. A growth of rushes forms the background and the lake itself the foreground; a fairly large part of the lake is clear, but a still larger part is overgrown with the large green leaves of the waterlily, under which the fish seemingly try to hide but now and then peek out and flounder about on the surface in order to bathe in sunshine. The land rises on the opposite side, a great beech forest, and in the morning light the lighted areas make a marvelous contrast to the shadowed areas. The church bells call to prayer, but not in a temple made by human hands. If the birds do not need to be reminded to praise God, then ought men not be moved to prayer outside of the church, in the true house of God, where heaven's arch forms the ceiling of the church, where the roar of the storm and the light breezes take the place of the organ's bass and treble, where the singing of the birds make up the congregational hymns of praise, where echo does not repeat the pastor's voice as in the arch of the stone church, but where everything resolves itself in an endless antiphony — Hillerød, July 25, 1835”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

“An authorship that began with Either/Or and advanced step by step seeks here its decisive place of rest, at the foot of the altar, where the author, personally most aware of his own imperfections and guilt, certainly does not call himself a truth-witness but only a singular kind of poet and thinker who, without authority, has had nothing new to bring but “has wanted once again to read through, if possible in a more inward way, the original text handed down from the fathers” Preface P. 165”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1850s, Two Discourses at Friday Communion (August 1851)

“Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content; it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1840s, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841)

“The truth is always in the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because as a rule the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusory, formed of that crowd which has no opinion — and which therefore the next moment (when it becomes clear that the minority is the stronger) adopts the latter's opinion, which now is in the majority, i. e. becomes rubbish by having the whole retinue and numerousness on its side, while the truth is again in a new minority.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

1850
1850s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1850s

“The world and Christianity have completely opposite conceptions. The world says of the apostles, of the Apostle Peter as their spokesman, "He is drunk,"-and the Apostle Peter admonishes, "Become sober." Consequently the secular mentality considers Christianity to be drunkenness, and Christianity considers the secular mentality to be drunkenness. "Do become reasonable, come to your senses, try to become sober"-thus does the secular mentality taunt the Christian. And the Christian says to the secular mentality, "Do become reasonable, come to your senses, become sober." The difference between secularity and Christianity is not that one has one view and the other another-no, the difference is always that they have the very opposite views, that what one calls good the other calls evil, what the one calls love the other calls selfishness, what the one calls piety the other calls impiety, What the one calls being drunk the other calls being sober. it is precisely the drunken man, the apostle, who finds it necessary to bring home to the sober (I assume) world the admonition: "Become sober!"”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

This very admonition may, as intended, most severely wound the callous secular mentality, which as a rule cannot be wounded very easily or disconcerted.
Judge for Yourself, p. 96-97 1851
1850s, Judge For Yourselves! 1851 (1876)

“For as only one thing is necessary, and as the theme of the talk is the willing of only one thing: hence the consciousness before God of one’s eternal responsibility to be an individual is that one thing necessary.”

Help us translate this quote

Sören Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, 1847 p. 197-198
1840s, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), Purity of Heart (1847)