BiographyType: Philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic Born: 5 May 1813 Died: 11 November 1855 Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. He was against literary critics who defined idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time. Swedenborg, Hegel, Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel and Hans Christian Andersen were all "understood" far too quickly by "scholars". |
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Hope is a passion for the possible.
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.
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
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.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.
Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!
If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.
If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?
Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by a genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.
What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?
la vida sólo puede ser entendida mirando hacia atrás; aunque deba ser vivida mirando hacia adelante
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