| 1835 | Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund |
| J-1A | p.8 | 16005 | I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters |
| Full Idea: The thing is to find a truth which is true for me - the idea for which I can live and die. I still recognise an imperative of knowledge, but it must be taken up into my life, which I now recognise as the most important thing. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund [1835], J-1A) | |||
| A reaction: A quintessentially existential idea. Note that he still considers objective knowledge to be quite important, but how we act and relate to those ideas is what really matters for us human beings. [SY] |
| 1843 | Either/Or: a fragment of life |
| p.37 | 22087 | Philosophy fails to articulate the continual becoming of existence | |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard criticise philosophy for its inability to grasp and to articulate the movement, the continual becoming, that characterises existence. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 2 | |||
| A reaction: Heraclitus had a go, and Hegel's historicism focuses on dynamic thought, but this idea concerns the immediacy of individual life. |
| p.41 | 22088 | Faith is like a dancer's leap, going up to God, but also back to earth | |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard doesn't use the phrase 'leap of faith'. His metaphor of a dancer's leap expresses the way faith goes 'up' towards God, but also comes back down to earth, and is a way of living in the world. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 2 | |||
| A reaction: This entirely contradicts what I was taught about this idea many years ago. Memes turn into Chinese whispers. |
| p.62 | 22091 | Kierkegaard prioritises the inward individual, rather than community | |
| Full Idea: Whereas Hegel argues that individuals find fulfilment through participation in their community, Kierkegaard prioritises the inwardness of each person, which is shared only with God. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |||
| A reaction: Sounds like the protestant religion opposing the catholic religion (although Hegel was a protestant). Individual v community is the great debate of the last two centuries in Europe. |
| p.75 | 22095 | There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity | |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life? | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |||
| A reaction: His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they? |
| p.189 | 5651 | Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject | |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |||
| A reaction: It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought. |
| p.189 | 5650 | Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' | |
| Full Idea: For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |||
| A reaction: Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster. |
| I:26 | p.60 | 22090 | For me time stands still, and I with it |
| Full Idea: Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |||
| A reaction: This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur. |
| p.106 | p.32 | 20747 | What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing |
| Full Idea: In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology' | |||
| A reaction: I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')? |
| Pt.1 | p.57 | 9305 | The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves |
| Full Idea: Those who bore others are the plebeians, the crowd, the endless train of humanity in general; those who bore themselves are the chosen ones, the nobility. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], Pt.1), quoted by Lars Svendsen - A Philosophy of Boredom Ch.2 | |||
| A reaction: [p.288 in Princeton Edn] Stunningly elitist, but ask where boredom is most overtly found. "Boring" was once a very fashionable word among the English upper classes. Education and wealth seem to intensify boredom. |
| 1843 | Fear and Trembling |
| p.49 | p.49 | 16006 | Either Abraham rises higher than universal ethics, or he is a mere murderer |
| Full Idea: Either Abraham was a murderer, or we confront a paradox higher than all mediation. His story therefore contains the teleological suspension of the ethical, and he becomes higher than the universal. If not, he is not a tragic hero or the father of faith. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling [1843], p.49) | |||
| A reaction: A nice dilemma for Christian thinkers who want to reconcile reason and morality with religion. [SY] |
| Prob I | p.88 | 7577 | Abraham was willing to suspend ethics, for a higher idea |
| Full Idea: The story of Abraham (and Isaac) contains a teleological suspension of the ethical. ...In his action he overstepped the ethical altogether, and had a higher idea outside it, in relation to which he suspended it. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling [1843], Prob I) | |||
| A reaction: My immediate response is to find this proposal very sinister. I can't remotely understand what Abraham's (or God's) 'higher' idea could be that could justify this crime. Maybe ethics is suspended if you are on the beach and a tidal wave arrives? |
| 1843 | Repetition |
| p.73 | 22094 | Subjective truth can only be sustained by repetition | |
| Full Idea: If subjective truth is to be more than momentary, it has to be repeated continually. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Repetition [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |||
| A reaction: This might apply to more traditional concepts of truth, if they are to be part of life, rather than remaining in books. |
| p.49 | p.73 | 22093 | Life is a repetition when what has been now becomes |
| Full Idea: When one says that life is a repetition one affirms that existence which has been now becomes. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Repetition [1843], p.49), quoted by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |||
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems very close to Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. |
| 1844 | The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) |
| p.97 | 22096 | Anxiety is not a passing mood, but a response to human freedom | |
| Full Idea: For Kierkegaard anxiety is not simply a mood or an emotion that certain people experience at certain times, but a basic response to freedom that is part of the human condition. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5 | |||
| A reaction: Outside of Christianity, this may be Kierkegaard's most influential idea - since existential individualism is floating around in the romantic movement. But the Byronic hero experiences a sort of anxiety. If you can't face anxiety, become a monk or nun. |
| p.105 | 22098 | Socrates neglects the gap between knowing what is good and doing good | |
| Full Idea: There is a fundamental weakness in Socrates, that he does not take into account the gap between knowing what is good and actually putting this into action. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5 | |||
| A reaction: This rejects Socrates's intellectualism about weakness of will. It is perhaps a better criticism that Aristotle's view that desires sometimes overcome the will. It is also the problem of motivation in Kantian deontology. Or utilitarianism. |
| p.154 | p.100 | 22097 | The ultimate in life is learning to be anxious in the right way |
| Full Idea: Every human being must learn to be anxious in order that he might not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing in anxiety. Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learnt the ultimate. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.154), quoted by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5 | |||
| A reaction: I think this is the most existentialist quotation I have found in Kierkegaard. It sounds circular. You must be in anxiety because otherwise you won't be able to cope with anxiety? I suppose anxiety is facing up to his concept of truth. |
| p.187 | p.103 | 21909 | Ultimate knowledge is being anxious in the right way |
| Full Idea: Whoever learns to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.187), quoted by Alastair Hannay - Kierkegaard 06 | |||
| A reaction: This shows us that Kierkegaard had a rather bizarre mental life which the rest of us have little chance of penetrating. I'll have a go at cataloguing my types of anxiety, but I'm not hopeful. |
| p.55 | p.81 | 20758 | Anxiety is staring into the yawning abyss of freedom |
| Full Idea: One may liken anxiety to dizziness. He whose eyes chance to look down into a yawning abyss becomes dizzy. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom which is when freedom gazes down into its own possibility, grasping at finiteness to sustain itself. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.55), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Moods' | |||
| A reaction: Most of us rapidly retreat from the thought of the infinity of things we might choose. Choosing bizarrely merely to assert one's freedom is simple stupidity. |
| 1844 | Philosophical Fragments |
| p.40 | p.40 | 16007 | I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it |
| Full Idea: I always reason from existence, not towards existence. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.40) | |||
| A reaction: Kierkegaard's important premise to help show that theistic proofs for God's existence don't actually prove existence, but develop the content of a conception. [SY] |
| p.74 | p.74 | 16013 | Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' |
| Full Idea: Can the necessary come into existence? That is a change, and everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary. The necessary already 'is'. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.74) | |||
| A reaction: [SY] |
| 1845 | works |
| p.1 | 22086 | The most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion | |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard insisted that the most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (works [1845]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed Intro | |||
| A reaction: Hume comes to mind for a similar view, but in character Hume was far more rational than Kierkegaard. |
| 1846 | Concluding Unscientific Postscript |
| p.18 | 20312 | God cannot be demonstrated objectively, because God is a subject, only existing inwardly | |
| Full Idea: Choosing the objective way enters upon the entire approximation-process by which it is proposed to bring God to light objectively. But this is in all eternity impossible, because God is a subject, and therefore exist only for subjectivity in inwardness. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) | |||
| A reaction: [pg in 711] This seems to have something like Wittgenstein's problem with a private language - that with no external peer-review it is unclear what the commitment is. |
| p.21 | 20313 | The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion | |
| Full Idea: An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth available for an existing individual. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) | |||
| A reaction: [Bk 711] Offered as a definition of truth, knowing how strange and paradoxical it sounds. If we view all life as subjectivity, then there can of course be nothing more to truth than passionate conviction. Personally I think thought can be objective. |
| p.23 | 20314 | People want to lose themselves in movements and history, instead of being individuals | |
| Full Idea: Everything must attach itself so as to be part of some movement; men are determined to lose themselves in the totality of things, in world-history, fascinated and deceived by a magic witchery; no one wants to be an individual human being. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) | |||
| A reaction: [Bk 711] I presume 'world-history' refers to the exhilerating ideas of Hegel. Right now [2017] I would say we have far too much of people only wanting to be individuals, with insufficient attention to our social nature. |
| p.71 | 22092 | Kierkegaard's truth draws on authenticity, fidelity and honesty | |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard offers a different interpretation of truth, which draws on the notions of authenticity, fidelity and honesty. | |||
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |||
| A reaction: This notion of truth, meaning 'the real thing' (as in 'she was a true scholar'), seems to begin with Hegel. I suggest we use the word 'genuine' for that, and save 'truth' for its traditional role. It is disastrous to blur the simple concept of truth. |
| 'Author' | p.194 | 7578 | I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere |
| Full Idea: I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Author') | |||
| A reaction: Nice. It is like Socrates's image of himself as the 'gadfly' of Athens. The interesting question is always to see what the rest of society makes of having someone in their midst who sees it as their social role to 'create difficulties'. |
| 'Inwardness' | p.215 | 7584 | Without risk there is no faith |
| Full Idea: Without risk there is no faith. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Inwardness') | |||
| A reaction: Remarks like this make you realise that Kierkegaard is just as much of a romantic as most of the other nineteenth century philosophers. Plunge into the dark unknown of the human psyche, in order to intensify and heighten human life. |
| 'Lessing' | p.203 | 7579 | While big metaphysics is complete without ethics, personal philosophy emphasises ethics |
| Full Idea: While the Hegelian philosophy goes on and is finished without having an Ethics, the more simple philosophy which is propounded by an existing individual for existing individuals, will more especially emphasis the ethical. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing') | |||
| A reaction: This is reminiscent of the Socratic revolution, which shifted philosophy from the study of nature to the study of personal virtue. However, if we look for ethical teachings in existentialism, there often seems to be a black hole in the middle. |
| 'Lessing' | p.204 | 7580 | Pantheism destroys the distinction between good and evil |
| Full Idea: So called pantheistic systems have often been characterised and challenged by the assertion that they abrogate the distinction between good and evil. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing') | |||
| A reaction: He will have Spinoza in mind. Interesting. Obviously this criticism would come from someone who thought that the traditional deity was the only source of goodness. Good/evil isn't all-or-nothing. A monistic system could contain them. |
| 'Lessing' | p.206 | 7581 | Speculative philosophy loses the individual in a vast vision of humanity |
| Full Idea: Being an individual man is a thing that has been abolished, and every speculative philosopher confuses himself with humanity at large, whereby he becomes infinitely great - and at the same time nothing at all. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing') | |||
| A reaction: Compare Idea 4840. This is a beautiful statement of the motivation for existentialism. The sort of philosophers who love mathematics (Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Russell) love losing themselves in abstractions. This is the rebellion. |
| p.106 | p.106 | 15999 | Pure truth is for infinite beings only; I prefer endless striving for truth |
| Full Idea: If God held all truth enclosed in his right hand, and in his left hand the ever-striving drive for truth, even if erring forever, and he were to say Choose! I would humbly fall at his left hand and say Father, give! Pure truth is for infinite beings only. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.106) | |||
| A reaction: A sobering realistic thought of our own limitations; Kierkegaard allows that there is no limit to how far we can strive for truth. Just that truth is comprehended by infinite beings (if any), not by mere mortals. [SY] |
| p.281 | p.25 | 20742 | The real subject is ethical, not cognitive |
| Full Idea: The real subject is not the cognitive subject …the real subject is the ethically existing subject. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.281), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Subjective' | |||
| A reaction: Perhaps we should say the essence of the self is its drive to live, not its drive to know. Just getting through the day is top priority, and ethics don’t figure much for the solitary person. But each activity, such as cooking, has its virtues. |
| p.459 | p.354 | 22047 | Wherever there is painless contradiction there is also comedy |
| Full Idea: Wherever there is contradiction, the comical is also present. ...The tragic is the suffering contradiction, the comical is the painless contradiction. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.459), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 13 | |||
| A reaction: He is not saying that this is the only source of comedy. I once heard an adult say that there is one thing that is always funny, and that is a fart. |
| 'Subjective' | p.208 | 7582 | Becoming what one is is a huge difficulty, because we strongly aspire to be something else |
| Full Idea: Striving to become what one already is is a very difficult task, the most difficult of all, because every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective') | |||
| A reaction: Presumably most people continually drift between vanity and low self-esteem, and between unattainable daydreams and powerless immediate reality. That creates the stage on which Kierkegaard's interesting battle would have to be fought. |
| 'Subjective' | p.210 | 7583 | Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity |
| Full Idea: Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective') | |||
| A reaction: The word 'highest' should always ring alarm bells. The worst sort of religious fanatics seem to be in the grip of this 'high' passion. The early twenty-first century is an echo of eighteenth century England, with its dislike of religious 'enthusiasm'. |
| 'Thinker' | p.231 | 7586 | God does not think or exist; God creates, and is eternal |
| Full Idea: God does not think, He creates; God does not exist, he is eternal. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Thinker') | |||
| A reaction: The sort of nicely challenging remarks we pay philosophers to come up with. I don't understand the second claim, but the first one certainly avoids all paradoxes that arise if God experiences all the intrinsic problems of thinking. |
| 1847 | Works of Love |
| p.158 | p.158 | 15998 | Perfect love is not in spite of imperfections; the imperfections must be loved as well |
| Full Idea: To love another in spite of his weaknesses and errors and imperfections is not perfect love. No, to love is to find him lovable in spite of, and together with, his weaknesses and errors and imperfections. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Works of Love [1847], p.158) | |||
| A reaction: A true romantic at heart, Kierkegaard ideally posits perfect love as unconditional love, and not just of good attributes, predicates and conditions. However, the real question for both me and Kierkegaard is, is perfect love desirable or even possible?[SY] |
| 1849 | Sickness unto Death |
| p.59 | p.59 | 16002 | The self is a combination of pairs of attributes: freedom/necessity, infinite/finite, temporal/eternal |
| Full Idea: A human being is essentially spirit, but what is spirit? Spirit is to be a self. But what is the Self? In short, it is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Sickness unto Death [1849], p.59) | |||
| A reaction: The dense language of his first paragraph was to poke fun at fashionable Hegelian writing. The book gets very lucid afterwards! [SY] |
| 1850 | The Journals of Kierkegaard |
| 1840.07.18 | p.12 | 16012 | Philosophy can't be unbiased if it ignores language, as that is no more independent than individuals are |
| Full Idea: If the claim of philosophers to be unbiased were all it pretends to be, it would have to take account of language and its significance...Language is partly given and partly develops freely. As individuals cannot be truly independent, so too with language. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], 1840.07.18) | |||
| A reaction: A surprisingly prophetic entry from Kierkegaard anticipating the linguistic turn. [SY] |
| 1855.09.25 | p.156 | 21910 | Our destiny is the highest pitch of world-weariness |
| Full Idea: Our destiny in this life is to be brought to the highest pitch of world-weariness. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], 1855.09.25), quoted by Alastair Hannay - Kierkegaard 10 | |||
| A reaction: The beginning of his last entry. Hardly a great general truth, but interesting. Should we aspire to exhaust life? |
| JP-1:214 | p.214 | 16008 | The best way to be a Christian is without 'Christianity' |
| Full Idea: One best becomes a Christian - without 'Christianity'. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-1:214) | |||
| A reaction: A very healthy attitude for followers of Jesus, given today's television evangelists, religious fundamentalist and zealots. [SY] |
| JP-III, 40-41 | p.40 | 16003 | If people marry just because they are lonely, that is self-love, not love |
| Full Idea: People despair about being lonely and therefore get married. But is this love? I should say it is self-love. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 40-41) | |||
| A reaction: If you decide to marry someone because you don't want to be an old maid/bachelor in your elder years, try to actually love the person you're marrying. Not just for money or sex. [SY] |
| JP-III, 635 | p.450 | 16001 | Life may be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backwards. But then it forgets the other side - that it must be lived forwards. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 635) | |||
| A reaction: Some of the best philosophers dwell too much on philosophy, history and the past, while forgetting to actually live and enjoy their lives. [SY] |
| JP-III, 635 | p.635 | 16000 | Fixed ideas should be tackled aggressively |
| Full Idea: Fixed ideas are like a cramp in your foot: the best remedy is to stomp on them. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 635) | |||
| A reaction: Sound philosophical advice at any time. [SY] Does this apply in seminars, as well as in private meditation? [PG] |
| p.146 | p.4 | 20735 | We need to see that Christianity cannot be understood |
| Full Idea: The problem is not to understand Christianity, but to understand that it cannot be understood. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], p.146), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 1 'Roots' | |||
| A reaction: This seems to cut us intellectually adrift. We could say the same of supporting Real Madrid. There has to be some magnetism which holds our attention, and there must be something to say about that. |
| 1855 | Attack Upon Christendom |
| p.290 | p.290 | 16009 | When we seek our own 'freedom' we are just trying to avoid responsibility |
| Full Idea: In all our own 'freedom' we actually seek one thing: to be able to live without responsibility. | |||
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Attack Upon Christendom [1855], p.290) | |||
| A reaction: That's the plan when I win the lottery. [SY] |