Soren Kierkegaard Quotes

Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.

Nobody doubts that he exists, though he may doubt the existence of God. If he finds out the truth about himself and discovers his own source, this is all that is required.

We can never know who or what we are till we know at least something of what God is.

What I really need is to get clear out about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge precedes every act.

Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.

My philosophy is TRUTH unto me. Through expressing my individuality I become free.

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth.

I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. --From the Introduction

It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be.

I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't.

It takes a well-spent lifetime, and perhaps more, to crystalize in us that for which we exist.

Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which... are just the opposite of what we were made for?

It's not important to know who you are. It's important to know what you do, and then to do it like hercules!

Passion is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation. It changes concepts to experience.... Never deny passion, for that is to deny Who You Are, and Who You Truly Want To Be.

Even facts become fictions without adequate ways of seeing "the facts". We do not need theories so much as the experience that is the source of the theory. We are not satisfied with faith, in the sense of an implausible hypothesis irrationally held: we demand to experience the "evidence".

Miracles are like candles lit up until the sun rises, and then blown out. Therefore, I am amused when I hear sects and churches talk about having evidence of Divine authority because they have miracles. Miracles in our time are like candles in the street at midday. We do not want miracles. They are to teach men how to find out truths themselves; and after they have learned this, they no more need them than a well man needs a staff, or a grown-up child needs a walking-stool.

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

We need wisdom the most when we believe in it the least.

When you know your not going to die, you have to ask yourself... What's the highest and best use for myself.

Most Christians are educated way beyond the level of their obedience already! We don’t need to know more, we need to do more.

I want to discover a truth for myself that is really true. Whether it's a piece of scientific knowledge, or a philosophical truth.

Knowing the 'right answers' does not mean we believe them. To believe them means to act as though they're true.

I'm nothing. Nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, the only truth I know, it's all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense.