Soren Says

The thoughts of Soren Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms.

[sorensays]

O Luther, you had ninety-five theses, in our present situation there is only one thesis: Christianity does not exist at all.

Soren Kierkegaard (Supplement to Either/Or II)

[sorensays]

Marital love fears nothing, not even minor mistakes; it does not fear little infatuations - in fact, these, too, only nourish the divine soundness of marital love.

Judge William (Either/Or II)

[sorensays]

An older woman who has supposedly left all illusion behind is often found to be fantastically illuded, as much as any young girl, in her own recollections of herself as a young girl, of how happy she was then, how beautiful, etc. This fuimus [we have been], which we so often hear from older people, is just as great an illusion as the younger person's illusions of the future; they lie or invent, both of them.

Anti-Climacus The Sickness Unto Death

[sorensays]

...there are essentially two forms of delusion: that of hope and that of recollection.

Anti-Climacus The Sickness Unto Death

[sorensays]

The self-lover is busy; he shouts and complains and insists on his rights in order to make sure he is not forgotten - and yet he is forgotten. But the lover, who forgets himself, is remembered by love.

Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

[sorensays]

...for the world is a very confused thinker who has neither the time nor the patience to think a single rigorous thought.

Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

[sorensays]

Love is a revolution, the most profound of all but the most blessed! Therefore with love, too, there comes confusion; in this life-giving confusion there is no distinction for the lovers between mine and yours. Remarkable! There are a you and I and yet no mine and yours! For without you and I there is no love, and with mine and yours there is no love.

Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

[sorensays]

A vindictive individual says sometimes that he hopes to God that vengeance will fall upon the hated one. But in truth, this is not to hope but to hate, and it is impudent to call this a hope; it is a blasphemy to wish to make God an accomplice in hating.

Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

[sorensays]

Delusion is always floating; for that reason it sometimes appears quite light and spiritual, because it is so airy. Truth takes a first step, and for that reason sometimes a difficult one, too.

Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

[sorensays]

And a delusion, as you know, never stops by itself; it only leads on into a greater and greater delusion so that it becomes more and more difficult to find one's way back to the truth.

Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love

[sorensays]

People's remarks are so objective, so all inclusive, that it is a matter of complete indifference who expresses them, and where human speech is concerned, that is the same as acting 'on principle.'

Soren Kierkegaard The Present Age

[sorensays]

What is reasoning? It is the result of doing away with the vital distinction which separates subjectivity and objectivity.

Soren Kierkegaard The Present Age

[sorensays]

The envy which springs from reflection imprisons man's will and his strength.

Soren Kierkegaard The Present Age

[sorensays]

A passionate tumultuous age will overthrow everything, pull everything down; but a revolutionary age, that is at the same time reflective and passionless, transforms that expression of strength into a feat of dialectics: it leaves everything standing but cunningly empties it of significance.

Soren Kierkegaard The Present Age 

[sorensays]

I love Kierkegaard and want to become more familiar with his ideas. The problem is that you need a lot of context to grasp these things. So if you can find quotes that work great out of context, that would be awesome.

Quotes that work out of context would very likely be too reductive due to the nature of Kierkegaard's writings, but at the same time, I do think certain themes can be gathered based on what has been posted. There's a book by Steven Evans called Kierkegaard: An Introduction that would be a good general overview of his works. It's a fairly quick and straight forward read. 

I will offer a few general concepts that Kierkegaard focuses on. 1. An emphasis on subjectivity rather than objectivity. 2. An emphasis on the individual. Kierkegaard is often thought of as one of the first existentialists. 3. A very rigorous approach to Christianity and Christian practice which he expresses brilliantly and polemically in his later texts in the last years of his life. (Practice in Christianity, Attack Upon Christendom).

Kierkegaard is one of the most complex thinkers of the 19th century, and his authorial style is unique and dynamic, but ultimately adds to the difficulty in interpreting his work. 

[sorensays]

If a human being were a beast or an angel, he could not be in anxiety. Because he is a synthesis, he can be in anxiety; and the more profoundly he is in anxiety, the greater is the man...

Viligus Haufniensis The Concept of Anxiety

[sorensays]

Anxiety is freedom's possibility...

Viligus Haufniensis The Concept of Anxiety