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The Quotable Kierkegaard
The most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Kierkegaard quotations ever published
"Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven―in the spring at the earth."―Søren Kierkegaard
The father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a philosopher who could write like an angel. With only a sentence or two, he could plumb the depths of the human spirit. In this collection of some 800 quotations, the reader will find dazzling bon mots next to words of life-changing power. Drawing from the authoritative Princeton editions of Kierkegaard's writings, this book presents a broad selection of his wit and wisdom, as well as a stimulating introduction to his life and work.
Organized by topic, this volume covers notable Kierkegaardian concerns such as anxiety, despair, existence, irony, and the absurd, but also erotic love, the press, busyness, and the comic. Here readers will encounter both well-known quotations ("Life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forward ") and obscure ones ("Beware false prophets who come to you in wolves' clothing but inwardly are sheep--i.e., the phrasemongers"). Those who spend time in these pages will discover the writer who said, "my grief is my castle," but who also taught that "the best defense against hypocrisy is love."
Illuminating and delightful, this engaging book also provides a substantial portrait of one of the most influential of modern thinkers.
"Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven―in the spring at the earth."―Søren Kierkegaard
The father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a philosopher who could write like an angel. With only a sentence or two, he could plumb the depths of the human spirit. In this collection of some 800 quotations, the reader will find dazzling bon mots next to words of life-changing power. Drawing from the authoritative Princeton editions of Kierkegaard's writings, this book presents a broad selection of his wit and wisdom, as well as a stimulating introduction to his life and work.
Organized by topic, this volume covers notable Kierkegaardian concerns such as anxiety, despair, existence, irony, and the absurd, but also erotic love, the press, busyness, and the comic. Here readers will encounter both well-known quotations ("Life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forward ") and obscure ones ("Beware false prophets who come to you in wolves' clothing but inwardly are sheep--i.e., the phrasemongers"). Those who spend time in these pages will discover the writer who said, "my grief is my castle," but who also taught that "the best defense against hypocrisy is love."
Illuminating and delightful, this engaging book also provides a substantial portrait of one of the most influential of modern thinkers.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
304 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2013
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351 people want to read
About the author
Gordon Marino
17 books42 followersGordon Marino is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Professor Marino took his doctorate from the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago. Before coming to St. Olaf in 1995, he taught at Harvard, Yale, and Virginia Military Institute.
A recipient of the Richard J. Davis Ethics Award for excellence in writing on ethics and the law, Marino is the author of Kierkegaard in the Present Age, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, and editor of the Modern Library’s Basic Writings of Existentialism and Ethics: The Essential Writings. In addition to his scholarly publications, Marino’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, and many other national and international publications.
A former boxer, Dr. Marino has been a USA Boxing coach since 1995. He was the head coach of boxing at Virginia Military Institute and currently trains both amateurs and professionals in Minnesota. He is also an award-winning boxing writer for among other venues, the Wall Street Journal.
A recipient of the Richard J. Davis Ethics Award for excellence in writing on ethics and the law, Marino is the author of Kierkegaard in the Present Age, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, and editor of the Modern Library’s Basic Writings of Existentialism and Ethics: The Essential Writings. In addition to his scholarly publications, Marino’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, and many other national and international publications.
A former boxer, Dr. Marino has been a USA Boxing coach since 1995. He was the head coach of boxing at Virginia Military Institute and currently trains both amateurs and professionals in Minnesota. He is also an award-winning boxing writer for among other venues, the Wall Street Journal.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 2, 2025
Willing is dialectical and has under it the entire lower nature of man. If willing does not agree with what is known, it does not necessarily follow thst willing goes and does the oppotion of what knowing understood; rather, willing allows some time to elapse, an interim called: "we shall look at it tomorrow". During all this, knowing becomes more and more obscure, and the lower natire gains the upper hand more and more...
The task is precisely to be objective in relation to oneself and subjective in relation to all others. [Most people are the opposite].
Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in [Jonathan] Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.
A fire in a theater offstage... amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it all a joke, the world will be destroyed.
The person who lives esthetically sees only possibilities everywhere; for him these make up the content of future time, whereas the person who lives ethically sees tasks everywhere.
Some wear the medal to their honour and others honour the medal by wearing it.
Indeterminableness is the basis of dizziness... therefore the remedy for dizziness is limitstion; and in the spiritual sense all discipline is limitation.
Hence anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself.
From men, man learns to speak, from the gods, to be silent.
Human being as a vessel, the god plants himself therein. When an oak nut is planted in a clay pot, the pot breaks; when new wine is poured into old leather bottles, they burst. The vessel must be renewed and changed.
The task is precisely to be objective in relation to oneself and subjective in relation to all others. [Most people are the opposite].
Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in [Jonathan] Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.
A fire in a theater offstage... amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it all a joke, the world will be destroyed.
The person who lives esthetically sees only possibilities everywhere; for him these make up the content of future time, whereas the person who lives ethically sees tasks everywhere.
Some wear the medal to their honour and others honour the medal by wearing it.
Indeterminableness is the basis of dizziness... therefore the remedy for dizziness is limitstion; and in the spiritual sense all discipline is limitation.
Hence anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself.
From men, man learns to speak, from the gods, to be silent.
Human being as a vessel, the god plants himself therein. When an oak nut is planted in a clay pot, the pot breaks; when new wine is poured into old leather bottles, they burst. The vessel must be renewed and changed.
August 30, 2021
Een verzameling van zo'n 800 citaten door Søren. Het boek is als een springplank vanaf waar men kan duiken in Kierkegaards ontzettend gevarieerde en altijd verrassende oeuvre. De citaten zijn niet gesorteerd per werk of jaar, maar per thema (angst, vrijheid, 'het ethische', tijd, existentie, liefde, ...) Dat is heerlijk on-academisch, precies zoals de dichter het zelf gewild zou hebben. "The Quotable Kierkegaard" is echt een vaste waarde in mijn boekenkast, het was het helemaal waard dit aan te kopen.
August 26, 2020
This book is a great introduction to Kierkegaard's ideas. The editorial process of selecting a handful of his thoughts, arranged by topic, gives you a sense of his voice without violating the pseudonymous approach he carefully crafted. The quotes here reveal how Kierkegaard's ideas have already diffused throughout our postmodern culture. Even if the tea leaves have been removed from the pot, and even if the water is cold–we have already been saturated in the flavour of his thinking.
November 23, 2019
was loving it in the beginning, fell in exhaustion in the end since religion is not my thing ... but overall, very entertaining for someone absorbing nihilism in mint condition
January 11, 2022
Was I the only one who didn't know this was just Christian propaganda
March 13, 2024
Like Pascal's Pensees but for Kierkegaard--excellent editing, and was able to gain some spiritual insight despite the limited context.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews