Inspiration Quote by Søren Kierkegaard — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“Philosophy cannot and should not give us an account of faith, but should understand itself and know just what it has indeed to offer, without taking anything away, least of all cheating people out of something by making them think it is nothing.”

“It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived—forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward- looking position.”

“Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by a genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.”

“He cannot become old, for he has never been young; he cannot become young, for he has already become old; in a way he cannot die, for he has never lived; in a way he cannot live, for he is already dead.”

“Can a person, then, do any more than love? Have thought and language any higher expression for loving than always to give thanks? Not at all, it has a lower, a humbler expression. Even the person who is always willing to give thanks nevertheless loves according to his own perfection, and a person can truly love God only when he loves him according to his own imperfection. Which love is this? It is the love that is born of repentance, which is more beautiful than any other love, for in it you love God. It is more faithful and more fervent than all other love, for in repentance it is God who loves you.”

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

“Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.”

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but ... the last of the human freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way.”

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”