“Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.” WayMeanIndividualAtheismHigherPleaseUniversalRelationAbsolutesNotesSuperiorsParadoxInferiorsJustifiedSubordinates Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.” IndividualTruth Is Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“In the life of the individual when love awakens it is older than everything else, because when it exists it seems as if it has existed for a long time; it presupposes itself back into the distant past until all searching ends in the inexplicable origin.” IfsLongEndsSeemsPastIndividualLong TimeInexplicable Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“In the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd. He only sees each individual” EyeSpiritIndividualMillionsInfiniteCrowds Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Oh, can I really believe the poet's tales, that when one first sees the object of one's love, one imagines one has seen her long ago, that all love like all knowledge is remembrance, that love too has its prophecies in the individual.” FirstsBelieveLongIndividualImagineObjectsPoetTalesLong AgoProphecyRemembrance Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Choose to be who you are. . . The individual who would become a person must at some point take over his entire being - must, that is, choose herself.” PersonsIndividualWho You AreBe Who You Are Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.” KindIndividualChildhoodSceneConceptsIncapableHomesicknessWithstanding Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“If someone who wanted to learn to dance were to say: For centuries, one generation after the other has learned the positions, and it is high time that I take advantage of this and promptly begin with the quadrille--people would presumably laugh a little at him, but in the world of spirit this is very plausible. What, then, is education? I believed it is the course the individual goes through in order to catch up with himself, and the person who will not go through this course is not much helped by being born in the most enlightened age.” PeopleIfsWorldLittlesPersonsAgeWantedSpiritOrderCoursesIndividualBornLaughingGenerationsCenturyPositionAdvantageEnlightenedPlausible Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see” PeopleThinkingLoveTruthIndividualLove IsExpressionDiscoveryPhilosopherDeep ThoughtLove Is Like Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Silence is the demon's trap, and the more one is silenced, the more terrible the demon; but silence is also the divinity's mutual understanding with the single individual.” IndividualUnderstandingSilenceTerribleDemonDivinityMutualTrapsSilence IsMutual Understanding Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“No one may pride himself at being more than an individual, and no one despondently think that he is not an individual.” ThinkingMayIndividualPride Book:Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing Source: Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing
“And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not.” StillsEndsRunningAsksIndividualMillionsOne ThingDespairEternitySilentActivismNoiseSecularRestlessHourglassTemporality Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Spiritual superiority only sees the individual. But alas, ordinarily we human beings are sensual and, therefore, as soon as it is a gathering, the impression changes - we see something abstract, the crowd, and we become different. But in the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd, He only sees each individual.” LifeHumansDifferentEyeSpiritualSpiritIndividualHuman BeingsMillionsInfiniteIndividualityCrowdsImpressionSensualAbstractSuperiorityGatheringAlas Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Had I to carve an inscription on my tombstone I would ask for none other than "The Individual."” AsksIndividualIndividualityTombstoneInscriptions Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“An individual in despair despairs over something. . . . In despairing over something, he really despair[s] over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper. . . . To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself-this is the formula for all despair.” WantStillsIndividualDespairIndividualityOneselfFormulas Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Compared with the person who is conscious of his despair, the despairing individual who is ignorant of his despair is simply a negativity further away from the truth and deliverance. . . . Yet ignorance is so far from breaking the despair or changing despair to nondespairing that it can in fact be the most dangerous form of despair. . . . An individual is furthest from being conscious of himself as spirit when he is ignorant of being in despair. But precisely this-not to be conscious of oneself as spirit-is despair, which is spiritlessness. . . .” PersonsFactsFormSpiritIndividualDangerousDangerIgnoranceDespairConsciousIndividualityOneselfIgnorantNegativityDeliverance Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“It was not to save a nation that Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, nor to appease angry gods... Then why does Abraham do it? For God's sake... He does it for the sake of God because God demands proof of his faith... He was not justified by being virtuous, but by being an individual submitted to God in faith.” DoeChristianIndividualNationsSacrificeDemandAngrySakeProofOrthodoxVirtuousJustifiedOrthodox ChristianAbrahamIsaacAppease Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Busyness, keeping up with others, hustling hither and yon, makes it almost impossible for an individual to form a heart.” HeartChristianFormIndividualImpossibleOrthodoxOrthodox ChristianHustle Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.” WantHumansLittlesArtFactsWantedFormReligionPassionWinningIndividualInterestChristPartyGroupsMovementNeededInvolvedTruth IsMassCrowdsDareWitnessRelatedNonsenseMartyrGet InvolvedUntruthInterest GroupsLittle Knowledge Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all.” IfsWayWellsDoeEndsMatterPlayUseShowsMightPassionIndividualEventsHabitProjectsReflectionNegativeCleverSettingSettingsThings To DoBetraySurroundingsRipAmbiguitySeductiveIllusoryMost Clever Author:Soren Kierkegaard
