755 Quotes by Søren Kierkegaard

Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe

Nothing, nothing, nothing, no error, no crime is so absolutely repugnant to God as everything which is official; and why? because the official is so impersonal and therefore the deepest insult which can be offered to a personality

This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love.

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.

If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.

The person who praises God is on the tracks of justice.

If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence.

If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin. Even though the result may gladden the whole world, that cannot help the hero; for he knows the result only when the whole thing is over, and that is not how he became a hero, but by virtue of the fact that he began.

One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states).