Kierkegaard Quotes

“the poem Søren wished to have engraved on his headstone: In a little while I shall have won, Then the entire battle Will disappear at once. Then I may rest In halls of roses And unceasingly, And unceasingly Speak with my Jesus.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“The bishop has pushed himself to the limits of his reputation to avoid any connection to the distasteful funeral going on across the way. Yet he knows, along with all of Copenhagen, that the events below are all anyone is talking about. They will be in all the papers tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. It is of paramount importance that these papers record that the newly minted Bishop of all Denmark, Hans L. Martensen, shepherd to the nation, was not present at the burial of his former student, now the scourge of all Christendom, Søren Kierkegaard.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“If anyone present noticed the irony that the events surrounding the funeral of Denmark’s most articulate champion of individuality had largely been dictated by an awkward, shuffling mob, they kept their counsel to themselves. Newspaper comment in the days following was muted, treating the affair briefly and carefully. “As if,” said one of Søren’s friends, “they were afraid of getting their fingers burnt.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“Poor Henriette Lund, there to grieve for her beloved uncle, was overwhelmed by a gang of gawkers who pushed their way into the church. The scene she relates was one of a ceremony on the verge of chaos, much like a restless mob waiting for something, anything, to happen. “The tightly packed mass of people surged like an angry sea,” she wrote, “while a ring of rather unpleasant-looking characters had placed themselves around the small flower-decked coffin.” This group was largely composed of self-declared supporters of Søren, upset that with this funeral the church was attempting to absorb into its own one of its most outspoken opponents.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“On November 24, 1855, Hans Christian Andersen wrote to a friend about the funeral and its aftermath. His observations help set the stage for the whole scenario as it played itself out. Søren Kierkegaard was buried last Sunday [November 18] following a service at the Church of Our Lady. The parties concerned had done very little. The church pews were closed, and the crowd in the aisles was unusually large. Ladies in red and blue hats were coming and going. Item: a dog with a muzzle. At the graveside itself there was a scandal: when the whole ceremony was over out there (that is, when [Dean] Tryde had cast earth upon the casket), a son of a sister of the deceased stepped forward and denounced the fact that he had been buried in this fashion. He declared—this was the point, more or less—that Søren Kierkegaard had resigned from our society, and therefore we ought not bury him in accordance with our customs! I was not there, but it was said to be unpleasant.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“Søren had said he wanted to upset blind habits and overturn easy assumptions. In this, if nothing else, he had succeeded.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“So it is that when on Friday, November 16, 1855, Denmark’s most venerable newspaper announced: “On the evening of Sunday, the eleventh of this month, after an illness of six weeks, Dr Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was taken from this earthly life, in his forty-third year, by a calm death, which hereby is sorrowfully announced on his own behalf of the rest of the family by his brother / P. Chr. Kierkegaard,” it did so with the full knowledge that enclosed in these simple lines raged a storm that threatened to spill out onto the quiet streets of Copenhagen and beyond. Or so they must have hoped.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“Religious citizens remembered him as the promising theologian who spoke and wrote endlessly about Christianity and yet who did not become a pastor and now never even went to church. Romantic citizens vaguely suspected this stillborn church career was somehow connected to the scandal of his broken engagement years before. “Such a sweet young girl,” they would whisper to each other, “and taken off by her new husband to the West Indies! It’s almost like they were escaping something, or someone.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“Christendom is what happens when people presume they are Christians as a matter of inherited tradition, as a matter of nationality, or because they agree with a number of commonsense propositions and Christianised moral guidelines. Kierkegaard sees Christendom as a process by which groups adopt, absorb, and neuter Christianity into oblivion, all the while assuming they are still Christian. Christendom is adept at shielding itself from its own source, for Christianity’s original documents offer a deep challenge precisely to the form of civilised life that Christendom represents.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life

“In a locked drawer of Søren’s writing desk, Peter found not one will and testament, but two. Both letters came with firm instructions that they were to be opened only after Søren’s death. Both letters were addressed to Peter, yet neither had Peter as their subject. One letter was dated four years previous. It did not contain a single word of rapprochement, but instead read simply: “ ‘The unnamed person, whose name will one day be named’ to whom the entirety of my authorial activity is dedicated, is my former fiancée, Mrs Regine Schlegel.” The other undated letter, doubtlessly opened with fear and trembling, was similarly terse. It was a will, of sorts, which left all of Søren’s possessions to his former fiancée. If Regine refused to accept it for herself, then everything was to go to her so she could distribute it to the poor as she saw fit. “What I wish to express,” wrote Søren, “is that for me the engagement was and is just as binding as a marriage.”
― Stephen Backhouse, Kierkegaard: A Single Life