Top 350 Soren Kierkegaard Quotes (2023 Update)

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

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Moving On Quotes

2. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

3. “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Quotes About Believing, Truth Quotes

4. “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Creativity Quotes, Fear Quotes

5. “Don’t forget to love yourself.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

6. “Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

7. “It’s better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Passion Quotes

8. “The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

9. “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

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

— Soren Kierkegaard

11. “Do it or don’t do it – you will regret both.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

12. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

13. “The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

14. “Leap of faith – yes, but only after reflection.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

15. “Once you label me you negate me.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

16. “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

17. “Without risk, faith is an impossibility.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Risk Quotes

18. “Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?”

— Soren Kierkegaard

19. “A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

20. “I’m so misunderstood that people misunderstand me even when I tell them I’m misunderstood.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

21. “For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

22. “Be that self which one truly is.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Individuality Quotes

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

— Soren Kierkegaard

24. “Confidence is the present tense of hope.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

25. “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

26. “The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

27. “Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

28. “The door to happiness opens outward.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

29. “God creates everything out of nothing. And everything which God is to use, he first reduces to nothing.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

30. “Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes – but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

31. “The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

32. “Worship isn’t God’s show. God is the audience. God’s watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Quotes About Actors

33. “The thing that cowardice fears most is decision.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Decision Quotes

34. “I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Clever Quotes

35. “To love another person is to help them love God.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

36. “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

37. “Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

38. “Prayer is a silent surrendering of everything to God.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

39. “To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. I am not a teacher, only a fellow student.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

40. “Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Featured in: Patience Quotes

41. “Hope is passion for what is possible.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

42. “Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

43. “Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

44. “God does not think; he creates. He does not exist; he is eternal.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

45. “It is not the path which is the difficulty; rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

46. “The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

47. “Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!”

— Soren Kierkegaard

48. “The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

49. “There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

50. “Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.”

— Soren Kierkegaard