Tag: Soren Kierkegaard

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”

Soren Kierkegaard

“In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him… instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.”

Soren Kierkegaard

“People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.”

Soren Kierkegaard

“And this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.”

Soren Kierkegaard

“I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God.”

Soren Kierkegaard

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

Soren Kierkegaard

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

Soren Kierkegaard

I’m not really sure what he means.  Does he mean that compromising your principles is the same as giving up on your life?

“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.”

Soren Kierkegaard

Not very profound but actually very good advice so I included it.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Soren Kierkegaard

An odd way of looking at it but true.