Journals and Papers Quotes

“It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards. A proposition which, the more it is subjected to careful thought, the more it ends up concluding precisely that life at any given moment cannot really ever be fully understood; exactly because there is no single moment where time stops completely in order for me to take position [to do this]: going backwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers

“The whole world can be divided into those who write and those who do not write. Those who write represent despair, and those who read disapprove of it and believe that they have a superior wisdom – and yet, if they were able to write, they would write the same thing. Basically they are all equally despairing, but when one does not have the opportunity to become important with his despair, then it is hardly worth the trouble to despair and show it. Is this what it is to have conquered despair?”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers

“The only fundamental basis for understanding is that one himself becomes what he understands and one understands only in proportion to becoming himself that which he understands.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers

“The only proof of a conviction is one's life.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers

“Infinite humiliation and grace, and then a striving born of gratitude — this is Christianity.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers

“That is how I serve Christianity—in all my wretchedness happy in the thought of the indescribable good God has done for me, far beyond my expectations.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers