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Papers and Journals: A Selection
One of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, Soren Kierkegaard (1814-55) often expressed himself through pseudonyms and disguises. Taken from his personal writings, these private reflections reveal the development of his own thought and personality, from his time as a young student to the deep later internal conflict that formed the basis for his masterpiece of duality "Either/Or and beyond". Expressing his beliefs with a freedom not seen in works he published during his lifetime, Kierkegaard here rejects for the first time his father's conventional Christianity and forges the revolutionary idea of the 'leap of faith' required for true religious belief. A combination of theoretical argument, vivid natural description and sharply honed wit, the "Papers and Journals" reveal to the full the passionate integrity of his lifelong efforts 'to find a truth which is truth for me'.
682 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Søren Kierkegaard
1,137 books6,497 followersSøren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. His early work was written under various pseudonyms who present their own distinctive viewpoints in a complex dialogue.
Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.
Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.
Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.
Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.
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December 8, 2022
In his short life Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1814-1855) wrote over seven thousand pages of papers and journal entries, enough writing to fill an entire bookshelf. This Penguin collection organizes Kierkegaard’s journals into eight major phases of the philosopher’s life, from Kierkegaard’s early 20s to the last years of his life before he collapsed on the street at age 43. There is great insight and wisdom here. There is also wry humor and penetrating observations on 19th century European society and the ever-present existential challenges of human experience . To give a small taste of what a reader will find in the 600+ pages of this book, below are several of Kierkegaard’s pithy entries along with my very brief comments:
From the chapter: 1834-1836: THE FIRST JOURNAL ENTRIES
“People understand me so little that they fail even to understand my complaints that they do not understand me.”
Do you think you understand Kierkegaard? What do you think the Danish philosopher would think of your understanding?
“Damn and hell, I can abstract from everything but not from myself. I can’t even forget myself when I sleep.”
With reflections (and curses) like this, it is no surprise Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism!
From the chapter: 1848-1849: THE WIDENING OF THE RIFF
“No wonder I am thought mad. All that supports my endeavor is what might recommend it in eternity but secularly gives it a bad name and deprives me of respect. I earn nothing from it, it is not my livelihood or my job. And I am alone in a little country – where nevertheless a thousand priests are paid into thinking they are Christians.”
A pointed observation about established religion if there ever was one. And quite a statement of how the general public views a philosopher and original thinker.
From the last 2 chapters:
THE TRUTH IS NAKED
“To go swimming one takes off one’s clothes; to pursue the truth one must take one’s time in a much more inward sense, divesting oneself of a much more inward attire of thoughts, ideas, selfishness and the like, before one is naked enough.”
What do we in the 21st century have to unlearn to be better prepared to see the naked truth? Perhaps our first step would be to turn off our plasma screens and unplug our devices pumping in news or entertainment or music.
ABOUT MYSELF
“Slight, thin and delicate, denied practically all the physical conditions which, compared with others, could qualify me, too, as a whole human being; melancholy, sick in my mind, profoundly and inwardly a failure in many ways, I was given one thing: an eminently astute mind, presumably to keep me from being completely defenseless.”
Starting from his earliest year in the schoolyard, Kierkegaard had to do battle shackled with his frail, prematurely old body and a childhood poisoned by his melancholic father. But his mind was so unbelievably sharp. Thus, young Søren was given the nickname 'The Fork'. Fortunately for lovers of literary philosophy, SK was also given a natural gift to write!
PERSECUTION
“In our times persecution just doesn’t exit – because Christendom has been made so lacking in character that really there is nothing to persecute."
I recall a Kierkegaard quote where he observed the prime predictable fact of modern-day society is the abysmal lack of character. I have taken this quote as a challenge at every phase of my own life.
SOCRATES – THE OTHER
“Socrates always talked exclusively of food and drink – but really he was talking and thinking all the time of the infinite. The others are always talking, and in the loudest voices, about the infinite, but really they are talking and thinking all the time about food and drink.”
Two rhetorical questions: What is the prime topic of your conversation? What is the truth for which you are willing to live and die?
INTROVERSION
“We are warned against introversion; you might just as well warn against Christianity.”
You don’t have to be a follower of the Christian faith to see how we all must retain the integrity of our inner life.
I do not read these journal entries the way I read a novel, from beginning to end; rather, I read and reread one entry at a time. There is enough literary philosophy contained in this book to keep me going for many years.
March 5, 2011
Ah, fuck you Søren Kierkegaard, you insufferable shithead, you note-jotting, soul-waxing, lip-quivering, God-fingering, three-sixty-viewing, meaning-mushy, mystery-spelunking, Hegel-Bagel-bargling, shadow-boxing, love-working, knight of faith-touting, muffin-coiffed syncretic douchebag.
March 22, 2024
What a sad and horrifying book this is. But it's brilliant and important, and even if you don't agree with Kierkegaard's understanding of the Christian life as suffering--*really* suffering--it should be heard, if only to jar you out of complacency or self-deception. I'm still not positive what I think of this man or the way he saw Christianity, but there's much wisdom to be found here if you're willing to read slowly, carefully, and with a Bible in your other hand to "see if these things are so." One thing to say about Kierkegaard: he won't let you "get away with it," whatever "it" might be for you.
Read
November 9, 2025'She did not love my shapely nose, nor my fine eyes, nor my small feet, nor my good mind—she loved only me, and yet she didn't understand me.' (141)
'My thoughts constantly flit between two images of her—she is young, exuberant, animated, transparent, in short as I have perhaps never seen her—she is pale, withdrawn, waiting for the lonely hours when she can weep, in short, again as I have perhaps never seen her.' (145)
'It's curious how strictly, in a sense, I am being educated. Now and then I am put down into a dark cave where I creep around in agony and pain, see nothing, no way out. Then suddenly a thought awakens in my mind, so vivid that it feels as though I have never had it before, even though it is not an unfamiliar one and I had once been wed to it but only, so to speak, with the left hand, but now also with the right. When it has taken a hold in me I am clapped a little on the shoulder, taken by the arms; and I who had been squashed like a grasshopper then grow up again, healthy, thriving, warm and lively as a newborn babe. Then it's as though I had to pledge to follow this thought to the end; I pledge my life and now I am in harness. I cannot stop and my powers sustain themselves. Then I finish, and it starts all over again.' (155)
'My destiny seems to be to discourse on truth as far as I can discover it but in such a way as at the same time to demolish all possible authority on my own part. Since I then become incompetent and to the highest degree unreliable in men's eyes, I speak the truth and thus place them in the contradiction from which they can be rescued only by appropriating the truth themselves. It is only the personality that can absorb truth and make it his own that is mature...' (155)
'Can the transition from a quantitative to a qualitative determination occur without a leap? And doesn't all life lie in this?' (177)
'Freedom is being able. Good and evil do not exist outside freedom, since this distinction exists precisely by virtue of freedom.' (187)
'What an individual is capable of may be measured by how far his understanding is from his willing. What a person can understand he must also be able to make himself will. Between understanding and willing lie the excuses and evasions.' (211)
'Faith, quite rightly, is "the point outside the world" which therefore also moves the whole world.' (478)
'No one wants to be a "human being", that's not supposed to be something worth being. No one wants to be a "Christian", that's not supposed to be anything either. People don't think tasks like these suffice for life. Yet they all want—yes, they fight and struggle and wear themselves out—to become something. But this something is, for instance, Counsellor of Chancery or Squadron Surgeon.' (274)
'A solitary person cannot help, or save, an age; he can only give expression to the fact that it is going under.' (375)
'Deep down in every person there dwells an anxiety that he become alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among this huge household's millions upon millions. One keeps this anxiety at bay by seeing many people around one who are bound to one as kin and friends. But the anxiety is there all the same. One dare hardly think what it would feel like if all this were taken away.' (274)
'Humanly I have been much too fond of people. I may have pretended to ignore them—alas, just because I scarcely dared admit how much they meant to me—so as not to be considered altogether mad.' (309)
'My thoughts constantly flit between two images of her—she is young, exuberant, animated, transparent, in short as I have perhaps never seen her—she is pale, withdrawn, waiting for the lonely hours when she can weep, in short, again as I have perhaps never seen her.' (145)
'It's curious how strictly, in a sense, I am being educated. Now and then I am put down into a dark cave where I creep around in agony and pain, see nothing, no way out. Then suddenly a thought awakens in my mind, so vivid that it feels as though I have never had it before, even though it is not an unfamiliar one and I had once been wed to it but only, so to speak, with the left hand, but now also with the right. When it has taken a hold in me I am clapped a little on the shoulder, taken by the arms; and I who had been squashed like a grasshopper then grow up again, healthy, thriving, warm and lively as a newborn babe. Then it's as though I had to pledge to follow this thought to the end; I pledge my life and now I am in harness. I cannot stop and my powers sustain themselves. Then I finish, and it starts all over again.' (155)
'My destiny seems to be to discourse on truth as far as I can discover it but in such a way as at the same time to demolish all possible authority on my own part. Since I then become incompetent and to the highest degree unreliable in men's eyes, I speak the truth and thus place them in the contradiction from which they can be rescued only by appropriating the truth themselves. It is only the personality that can absorb truth and make it his own that is mature...' (155)
'Can the transition from a quantitative to a qualitative determination occur without a leap? And doesn't all life lie in this?' (177)
'Freedom is being able. Good and evil do not exist outside freedom, since this distinction exists precisely by virtue of freedom.' (187)
'What an individual is capable of may be measured by how far his understanding is from his willing. What a person can understand he must also be able to make himself will. Between understanding and willing lie the excuses and evasions.' (211)
'Faith, quite rightly, is "the point outside the world" which therefore also moves the whole world.' (478)
'No one wants to be a "human being", that's not supposed to be something worth being. No one wants to be a "Christian", that's not supposed to be anything either. People don't think tasks like these suffice for life. Yet they all want—yes, they fight and struggle and wear themselves out—to become something. But this something is, for instance, Counsellor of Chancery or Squadron Surgeon.' (274)
'A solitary person cannot help, or save, an age; he can only give expression to the fact that it is going under.' (375)
'Deep down in every person there dwells an anxiety that he become alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among this huge household's millions upon millions. One keeps this anxiety at bay by seeing many people around one who are bound to one as kin and friends. But the anxiety is there all the same. One dare hardly think what it would feel like if all this were taken away.' (274)
'Humanly I have been much too fond of people. I may have pretended to ignore them—alas, just because I scarcely dared admit how much they meant to me—so as not to be considered altogether mad.' (309)
August 27, 2019
"We often dazzle ourselves by adopting as our own many an idea and observation which either leaps vividly to mind from a time when we have read it, or else is present in the total consciousness of the age - yes, even as I write this observation now - perhaps this too is the result of the experience of the age."
A lot of thought-provoking ideas on Christianity; could have done without the decades' worth of pining over Regine, as well as Kierkegaard's resentful commentary on marriage.
September 25, 2024
oh dear god. i will just have to come back and finish writing this review, but this was certainly a read made even more intense by the sheer amount of ideas and slander squished into a two week deadline. now that i've read it i can say i'm happy i have, but...would i recommend this for others? it's an indignant "...i don't know." should i know? or, if i was kierkegaard, i don't want you to suffer as i have because i also do not believe that you can. or whatever.
i have to speedrun this as i am quite literally in class preparing for the discussion, but the quote that I don't see myself ever forgetting is his, "Hang yourself or don't hang yourself, you'll regret it either way" (139). foul. this man needs help, but also within that it's probably me, the Reader, who needs it too.
i'm obsessed with how he starts out toward the beginning asking the question, "Naturally every man wants to be active in the world according to his aptitudes, but that again means in a definite direction, namely that best suited to his individuality. But what direction is that?" (29) it's just so universal. it's a little funny, it's a little ironic, but mostly because it's every question ever had ever. i'd say the entire journal here is drenched in these sorts of entries. "I am so lacklustre and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it - alas, not even the bliss of heaven" (133) "I thought I would bear my suffering in concealment and then make life for others more beautiful" (588) "Most people these days are so spiritless, so deserted by graces, that the punishment simply isn't used on them. Lost in this life they cling to this life, out of nothing they become nothing, their life is a waste" (647)
all of his despair is made palatable through his othering of it. this detachment that then makes it possible to hold it closer, if that makes any sense at all. "In my melancholy I have still loved the world, for I loved my melancholy" (295). lines this this made my head hurt and his journal is filthy with it.
especially considering the time of writing, i can appreciate and enjoy how many musings of his concerned human beings and trying to articulate what this experience is. "Yet human beings forgive every crime except that of being what in their is to be inhuman - namely to be a human being" (311) lines like this are a paradox yet they make the most sense because of life's absurdity. at one point he states, "What unites all human beings is passion" (177) and with him having studied latin i wondered, multiple times throughout this, if he knew the word passion comes from the latin verb to suffer (though i will have to study danish more, this could be a conclusion from the void). he writes about suffering a lot. though, not all in vain, he has so many takes on humanity (as i assume we all do) that were refreshing to read. "imagination completes the human being" (241) he'd go light and then back down. "There are no longer human beings, thinkers, lovers, etc.; the human race is enveloped by the press in a miasma of thoughts, emotions, moods, even conclusions, intentions which are nobody's, which belong to none and yet to all" (355). i can't even get into his takes on humanity and religion right now. i really started seeing shapesm i had to put the book down. but here's an insane quote to lend as i talk about not talking about it: "To love God is then impossible without hating what is human" (606).
another thread is his overall haterism. it's pretty hilarious. i could write a whole goodreads post about the art of his hating. there's the whole part when he says "there is this new misunderstanding where people dare not laugh along with me because they are suspicious and unable to get it into their heads that in all this nonsense I might still have an eye for the comic" (346). i lol'ed....
he also goes, pretty early on, and repeats this later on 80, "his activity is like that of the man who contributes to the upkeep of the earth by the decomposition of his dead body" (30). the most some people will do is die?? it's comic but then i'll remember lines like "according to the one the task is to live, enjoy life, and put everything into that. The other view is: the meaning of life is to die " (611) (or love seonghwa) and i'd want to seriously cry and stare at the page for three hours (but we don't have three hours...when do i get to get to the point in life when we have three hours...)
then he'll turn around and rant how "Everyone takes his revenge in the world. My revenge consists in bearing my distress and anguish closed deeply within me while my laughter entertains everyone...If I can only keep this up until the day I die I shall have had my revenge" (110) which is not as funny. and then i'm sitting there like.... f word. a few others: "the minority is always stronger than the majority, because as a rule the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion" (511) "when it comes to it, the most miserable thing of all is mediocrity, the deepest damnation is mediocrity - oh, any crime is far preferable to this self-satisfied, smiling, cheerful, blissful demoralization" (595)
and then there are the bangers:
"It is quite true what philosophy says: that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards" (161)
"not cogito ergo sum, but I act ergo sum" (173)
"A beginning always has a double momentum: towards the past and towards the new; it pushes off in the direction of the old as much as it begins the new" (464)
so many times i paused and thought to myself, this man is crazy but not crazy in what he's saying, crazy in that he's saying it. there's truth in humor. there's truth in anger. in irony. in upset. here he is, simply writing it down. at one point he says "language is an abstraction" (447), but abstraction is abstraction. language is reflection of abstraction, a battle against it. a failure of it. i'm thinking of how all of this can't be meaningless after it's been said out loud. because it's been said out loud.
lastly, to end this review for now, i'll go back to the beginning when he says to the reader, "remember that it is uphill that we are struggling" (38). despite all the sorrow and heaviness and existential dread, there's this sense that we are always going somewhere. it is uphill that we are struggling. it doesn't matter if it is right or wrong or where you want to be or where you never could've imagined, we are all going forward and forward is up. forward is out. forward is escaping from yourself and back into yourself so you can be more. more what? well, isn't that what we are all figuring out.
i have to speedrun this as i am quite literally in class preparing for the discussion, but the quote that I don't see myself ever forgetting is his, "Hang yourself or don't hang yourself, you'll regret it either way" (139). foul. this man needs help, but also within that it's probably me, the Reader, who needs it too.
i'm obsessed with how he starts out toward the beginning asking the question, "Naturally every man wants to be active in the world according to his aptitudes, but that again means in a definite direction, namely that best suited to his individuality. But what direction is that?" (29) it's just so universal. it's a little funny, it's a little ironic, but mostly because it's every question ever had ever. i'd say the entire journal here is drenched in these sorts of entries. "I am so lacklustre and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it - alas, not even the bliss of heaven" (133) "I thought I would bear my suffering in concealment and then make life for others more beautiful" (588) "Most people these days are so spiritless, so deserted by graces, that the punishment simply isn't used on them. Lost in this life they cling to this life, out of nothing they become nothing, their life is a waste" (647)
all of his despair is made palatable through his othering of it. this detachment that then makes it possible to hold it closer, if that makes any sense at all. "In my melancholy I have still loved the world, for I loved my melancholy" (295). lines this this made my head hurt and his journal is filthy with it.
especially considering the time of writing, i can appreciate and enjoy how many musings of his concerned human beings and trying to articulate what this experience is. "Yet human beings forgive every crime except that of being what in their is to be inhuman - namely to be a human being" (311) lines like this are a paradox yet they make the most sense because of life's absurdity. at one point he states, "What unites all human beings is passion" (177) and with him having studied latin i wondered, multiple times throughout this, if he knew the word passion comes from the latin verb to suffer (though i will have to study danish more, this could be a conclusion from the void). he writes about suffering a lot. though, not all in vain, he has so many takes on humanity (as i assume we all do) that were refreshing to read. "imagination completes the human being" (241) he'd go light and then back down. "There are no longer human beings, thinkers, lovers, etc.; the human race is enveloped by the press in a miasma of thoughts, emotions, moods, even conclusions, intentions which are nobody's, which belong to none and yet to all" (355). i can't even get into his takes on humanity and religion right now. i really started seeing shapesm i had to put the book down. but here's an insane quote to lend as i talk about not talking about it: "To love God is then impossible without hating what is human" (606).
another thread is his overall haterism. it's pretty hilarious. i could write a whole goodreads post about the art of his hating. there's the whole part when he says "there is this new misunderstanding where people dare not laugh along with me because they are suspicious and unable to get it into their heads that in all this nonsense I might still have an eye for the comic" (346). i lol'ed....
he also goes, pretty early on, and repeats this later on 80, "his activity is like that of the man who contributes to the upkeep of the earth by the decomposition of his dead body" (30). the most some people will do is die?? it's comic but then i'll remember lines like "according to the one the task is to live, enjoy life, and put everything into that. The other view is: the meaning of life is to die " (611) (or love seonghwa) and i'd want to seriously cry and stare at the page for three hours (but we don't have three hours...when do i get to get to the point in life when we have three hours...)
then he'll turn around and rant how "Everyone takes his revenge in the world. My revenge consists in bearing my distress and anguish closed deeply within me while my laughter entertains everyone...If I can only keep this up until the day I die I shall have had my revenge" (110) which is not as funny. and then i'm sitting there like.... f word. a few others: "the minority is always stronger than the majority, because as a rule the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion" (511) "when it comes to it, the most miserable thing of all is mediocrity, the deepest damnation is mediocrity - oh, any crime is far preferable to this self-satisfied, smiling, cheerful, blissful demoralization" (595)
and then there are the bangers:
"It is quite true what philosophy says: that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards" (161)
"not cogito ergo sum, but I act ergo sum" (173)
"A beginning always has a double momentum: towards the past and towards the new; it pushes off in the direction of the old as much as it begins the new" (464)
so many times i paused and thought to myself, this man is crazy but not crazy in what he's saying, crazy in that he's saying it. there's truth in humor. there's truth in anger. in irony. in upset. here he is, simply writing it down. at one point he says "language is an abstraction" (447), but abstraction is abstraction. language is reflection of abstraction, a battle against it. a failure of it. i'm thinking of how all of this can't be meaningless after it's been said out loud. because it's been said out loud.
lastly, to end this review for now, i'll go back to the beginning when he says to the reader, "remember that it is uphill that we are struggling" (38). despite all the sorrow and heaviness and existential dread, there's this sense that we are always going somewhere. it is uphill that we are struggling. it doesn't matter if it is right or wrong or where you want to be or where you never could've imagined, we are all going forward and forward is up. forward is out. forward is escaping from yourself and back into yourself so you can be more. more what? well, isn't that what we are all figuring out.
October 31, 2012
"Every flower in my heart becomes an ice fern." (p.110)
In Kierkegaard's Journals readers get a glimpse into the high degree of secular existence that a genius must maintain in order to keep his body (and, most importantly, his spirit) away from those petty influences that characterize a spiritless, mass-market society. He also writes about his father who passed away when he was a young man, his love interests, Christianity (which is a given when you read Kierkegaard), his angels and demons, and everything in-between.
There is actually a disturbing amount of parallels one can discern between Kierkegaard's critical polemics and modern day society that help readers put things in perspective, almost a sort of challenge for the reader to not only look into the life of a 19th century genius, but also his or her own life, and want to know what human destiny is, penultimately, made of:
Some people say they cannot understand his writing - about concepts like subjectivity and objectivity, the mob, his style and language where many big words and foreign words are used - but, generally, this is all rooted in certain prejudices (and the degree of ignorance) each person has, and the great part about reading Kierkegaard is that he can help us overcome them, if only we thought fervently about what it essentially means to be human, and how unjust and mean it is to hold it against men and women who put humanity into practice that we always make them pay for our indifference, or mechanical mindset.
Kierkegaard had to endure much scrutiny in his time and in none of his work is it more apparent then in his Journals that such scrutiny was unjust and quite frivolous, and however well a society may be deluded, it is true that throughout history, such a mechanical disdain for genius had always been implicit in societies where envy is inherent in the social structure. (I say this because - amongst many others - writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Fernando Pessoa, two writers also greatly in touch with the human soul, who also write about philosophical ideas in an elevated, and yet, entrancing style, have also engaged in critical dialogues in opposition to their contemporary milieus).
In conclusion, I have to say that I learned much about Kierkegaard - his relationship with the media and the public, his love life, his solitude - that I had only gotten short glimpses of in the eight works I have read of his. The translation, as I had previously figured, was lackluster, seeing as though Kierkegaard's very fluid style seems to be lacking in this one (all of the previous books I had read by him were transalted by Hong and Hong), but it suffices. If you enjoy thinking and have read some of Kierkegaard's works you'll like this, but if you're somebody who is not accustomed to reading somewhat perplexing texts, or get too strung out on your opinions to entertain someone else's ideas, than I'd suggest you to not read Kierkegaard, and especially not his Journals.
In Kierkegaard's Journals readers get a glimpse into the high degree of secular existence that a genius must maintain in order to keep his body (and, most importantly, his spirit) away from those petty influences that characterize a spiritless, mass-market society. He also writes about his father who passed away when he was a young man, his love interests, Christianity (which is a given when you read Kierkegaard), his angels and demons, and everything in-between.
There is actually a disturbing amount of parallels one can discern between Kierkegaard's critical polemics and modern day society that help readers put things in perspective, almost a sort of challenge for the reader to not only look into the life of a 19th century genius, but also his or her own life, and want to know what human destiny is, penultimately, made of:
"The crowd will always regard a man of great understanding as lacking judgement."
"It is an agony to have to live in such a way that [...] I have to let [the public] think me mad just to be allowed to think - otherwise a great fuss may be made about me, I will have to tap my wine glass and make speeches at gatherings, loved and honored by all of those who do not think."
"What pains me most [...} is not the loutishness of the mob but the way the better people secretly participate in it."
Some people say they cannot understand his writing - about concepts like subjectivity and objectivity, the mob, his style and language where many big words and foreign words are used - but, generally, this is all rooted in certain prejudices (and the degree of ignorance) each person has, and the great part about reading Kierkegaard is that he can help us overcome them, if only we thought fervently about what it essentially means to be human, and how unjust and mean it is to hold it against men and women who put humanity into practice that we always make them pay for our indifference, or mechanical mindset.
Kierkegaard had to endure much scrutiny in his time and in none of his work is it more apparent then in his Journals that such scrutiny was unjust and quite frivolous, and however well a society may be deluded, it is true that throughout history, such a mechanical disdain for genius had always been implicit in societies where envy is inherent in the social structure. (I say this because - amongst many others - writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Fernando Pessoa, two writers also greatly in touch with the human soul, who also write about philosophical ideas in an elevated, and yet, entrancing style, have also engaged in critical dialogues in opposition to their contemporary milieus).
In conclusion, I have to say that I learned much about Kierkegaard - his relationship with the media and the public, his love life, his solitude - that I had only gotten short glimpses of in the eight works I have read of his. The translation, as I had previously figured, was lackluster, seeing as though Kierkegaard's very fluid style seems to be lacking in this one (all of the previous books I had read by him were transalted by Hong and Hong), but it suffices. If you enjoy thinking and have read some of Kierkegaard's works you'll like this, but if you're somebody who is not accustomed to reading somewhat perplexing texts, or get too strung out on your opinions to entertain someone else's ideas, than I'd suggest you to not read Kierkegaard, and especially not his Journals.
June 10, 2020
Truly a super clever and intelligent mind. I can't think of a greater thinker to have come out of Denmark. I remember being heavily influenced by a quote which I haven't been able to subsequently find precisely from Kierkegaard from a book that I read when I was a lot younger which said: to be yourself in desperation and to try to NOT be yourself in desperation, is a sin. I will let some of the best bits from the book do the talking because there were an incredible number of paradigm shifting thoughts which Kierkegaard offers us in this book. One of the key reasons for giving it 4 star only is because if I'm really honest, 80 to 90% of what he wrote was way beyond my ken, but wow the 10% that i did understand 😊. Another reason for giving it only four stars is that near the back end and maybe the last quarter of the book it goes heavily into Christianity which obviously I've got no problem with except that he was pivoting a lot of his arguments around religion and if I'm honest it got very repetitive and I found myself skipping large swathes of the book. Anyway here are my best bits:
If science is to be the eye of the human race, what confusion must there be if the eye itself is confused.
One person needs to be helped towards the decisive victory through the encouragement of small victories: another is strengthened by defeat.
Hear a mother scream in the hour of birth, see the death struggle at the very end, and then tell me that what begins and ends in this way should be intended as enjoyment?
Soren himself became convinced that he would not live more than 33. Time was there for sure and as the younger of the two surviving children of his parents, it became necessary for him not to lose the moments left to him and to find his life's positive form and record its content.
On looking at a fair number of individual samples of the Christian life, what strikes me is that, instead of bestowing strength on them, Christianity deprives such people of their manhood and they are like the gelding in relation to the stallion.
While a few stand isolated in the world there are an infinite number who really do just live in the age, who are so to speak the piano keys of the body politic, moved at the slightest touch, with no possibility of sustaining a definite impression. To live and die in the age in this way has nothing particularly encouraging to it, and yet there isn't much left for the majority of men once they have pawned their reason for the motto: live with your age.
There are those who traffic so irresponsibly and disgracefully in ideas they snap up from others that they should be charged with illegal trafficking in lost and found.
Man hardly ever makes use of the freedoms he has such as freedom of thoughts: in compensation he demands freedom of speech instead.
I learned from him what fatherly love is and through this gained a conception of divine fatherly love, the one unshakeable thing in life, the true Archimedean point.
It is quite true what philosophy says: but life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that life must be lived forwards.
In our time, book scribbling is so wretched and people write about things that they never really have given much thought to, let alone experienced. So I've decided to read only the writings of those who were executed or faced danger in some other way.
That is why I always say that it is sin that turns sexuality into sinfulness.
Really everyone is born to rule. One sees this best in children.
Today anyone can write a reasonably good article on anything: but no one wants or is able to sustain the strenuous effort of thinking just one single thought through to its finest conclusions. Instead what is appreciated today is the writing of trivia and for anyone to write a large book is to go so far as to invite ridicule. Previously people read large books and if one did write pamphlets or periodicals one didn't quite like to admit it. Now everyone feels it is their duty to read whatever there is in a periodical or a pamphlet but is ashamed to have read a big book through to the end for fear of being thought narrow minded.
For in my view being victorious doesn't mean that I triumph but that the idea triumphs through me, even if it also means that I am sacrificed.
How I write? 2 drafts of everything in my own hands. Three or four of larger parts and then something no one knows anything about. There's my meditating as I walk. The fact that I have said everything aloud to myself many times before even writing it down.
Then when I lie one day at death's door I shall comfort myself by saying: I've certainly not understood the least of this sort of thing, this thing called life, not a bit more than my maidservant, but then perhaps I have thanked God more often in praise and wonder.
The most common and dangerous form of despair is one which people fail to recognise in themselves and even mistake for its opposite. In a spiritless society whose institutions have nominally taken over spirits functions, no real basis for spirit or true selfhood remains in the established forms of life. Spiritual possibilities then tend to find their outlets outside such forms in madness, religious intoxication, the cults of the aesthetic, or in utopian politics .
It is true what my father said: you will never amount to anything as long as you have money.
In the old days people loved wisdom , nowadays they love the name of the philosopher.
For the lives of most people are and continue to be, the false lunge, or feint, of a purely sensate existence.
They have made Christianity into too much of a consolation and forgotten that it is a demand.
The truth is always in the minority and the minority is always stronger than the majority because as a rule, the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusionary, formed of that crowd which has no opinion and which therefore the next moment adopt the latter's opinion.
Christianity does not unite people, no it separates them, in order to unite every single person with God . And when a person is able to belong to God, he has died away from what unites the people.
Johannes V Muller says that there are two great powers around which everything revolves: ideas and women. That is quite correct and consistent with what I am saying here about the significance of imagination. Woman or ideas are what beckon people out into existence. Naturally there is a great difference that among the thousands that run after a skirt there is not always one who is moved by ideas. As for me, so hard has it been to get me out, that in my case the quite unusual experience of a girl was used as a middle term to get me out into an interest in ideas .
How ironic it is that it is precisely by means of language that a man can be degraded below the inarticulate. For twaddling is indeed a lower category than inarticulacy. (Current president of the United States of America Donald "the Ginger gerbil" Trump comes to mind.)
If science is to be the eye of the human race, what confusion must there be if the eye itself is confused.
One person needs to be helped towards the decisive victory through the encouragement of small victories: another is strengthened by defeat.
Hear a mother scream in the hour of birth, see the death struggle at the very end, and then tell me that what begins and ends in this way should be intended as enjoyment?
Soren himself became convinced that he would not live more than 33. Time was there for sure and as the younger of the two surviving children of his parents, it became necessary for him not to lose the moments left to him and to find his life's positive form and record its content.
On looking at a fair number of individual samples of the Christian life, what strikes me is that, instead of bestowing strength on them, Christianity deprives such people of their manhood and they are like the gelding in relation to the stallion.
While a few stand isolated in the world there are an infinite number who really do just live in the age, who are so to speak the piano keys of the body politic, moved at the slightest touch, with no possibility of sustaining a definite impression. To live and die in the age in this way has nothing particularly encouraging to it, and yet there isn't much left for the majority of men once they have pawned their reason for the motto: live with your age.
There are those who traffic so irresponsibly and disgracefully in ideas they snap up from others that they should be charged with illegal trafficking in lost and found.
Man hardly ever makes use of the freedoms he has such as freedom of thoughts: in compensation he demands freedom of speech instead.
I learned from him what fatherly love is and through this gained a conception of divine fatherly love, the one unshakeable thing in life, the true Archimedean point.
It is quite true what philosophy says: but life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that life must be lived forwards.
In our time, book scribbling is so wretched and people write about things that they never really have given much thought to, let alone experienced. So I've decided to read only the writings of those who were executed or faced danger in some other way.
That is why I always say that it is sin that turns sexuality into sinfulness.
Really everyone is born to rule. One sees this best in children.
Today anyone can write a reasonably good article on anything: but no one wants or is able to sustain the strenuous effort of thinking just one single thought through to its finest conclusions. Instead what is appreciated today is the writing of trivia and for anyone to write a large book is to go so far as to invite ridicule. Previously people read large books and if one did write pamphlets or periodicals one didn't quite like to admit it. Now everyone feels it is their duty to read whatever there is in a periodical or a pamphlet but is ashamed to have read a big book through to the end for fear of being thought narrow minded.
For in my view being victorious doesn't mean that I triumph but that the idea triumphs through me, even if it also means that I am sacrificed.
How I write? 2 drafts of everything in my own hands. Three or four of larger parts and then something no one knows anything about. There's my meditating as I walk. The fact that I have said everything aloud to myself many times before even writing it down.
Then when I lie one day at death's door I shall comfort myself by saying: I've certainly not understood the least of this sort of thing, this thing called life, not a bit more than my maidservant, but then perhaps I have thanked God more often in praise and wonder.
The most common and dangerous form of despair is one which people fail to recognise in themselves and even mistake for its opposite. In a spiritless society whose institutions have nominally taken over spirits functions, no real basis for spirit or true selfhood remains in the established forms of life. Spiritual possibilities then tend to find their outlets outside such forms in madness, religious intoxication, the cults of the aesthetic, or in utopian politics .
It is true what my father said: you will never amount to anything as long as you have money.
In the old days people loved wisdom , nowadays they love the name of the philosopher.
For the lives of most people are and continue to be, the false lunge, or feint, of a purely sensate existence.
They have made Christianity into too much of a consolation and forgotten that it is a demand.
The truth is always in the minority and the minority is always stronger than the majority because as a rule, the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusionary, formed of that crowd which has no opinion and which therefore the next moment adopt the latter's opinion.
Christianity does not unite people, no it separates them, in order to unite every single person with God . And when a person is able to belong to God, he has died away from what unites the people.
Johannes V Muller says that there are two great powers around which everything revolves: ideas and women. That is quite correct and consistent with what I am saying here about the significance of imagination. Woman or ideas are what beckon people out into existence. Naturally there is a great difference that among the thousands that run after a skirt there is not always one who is moved by ideas. As for me, so hard has it been to get me out, that in my case the quite unusual experience of a girl was used as a middle term to get me out into an interest in ideas .
How ironic it is that it is precisely by means of language that a man can be degraded below the inarticulate. For twaddling is indeed a lower category than inarticulacy. (Current president of the United States of America Donald "the Ginger gerbil" Trump comes to mind.)
October 8, 2008
Kierkegaard is a philosopher, a theologian, the Father of Existentialism, a literary critic, a humorist, a psychlogist, and a poet. This book provides, quite persuasively, a comprehensive description of the Kierkegaard complex. From it, one learns about a life worthy of a philosopher and about a philosophy worthy of living. This book does not disappoint if you wish to learn more about the puzzling and intriguing episodes in Kierkegaard's life. His philosophical point of view is enightening; this great philosopher's life and intellectual developments are inspiring.
April 13, 2007
This handy one-volume edition of entries from Kierkegaard's journals and papers shows a more personal side of Kierkegaard. One sees the struggles, sorrows, and joys that follow Magister Soren across his life -- it's a side of him that does not always come across in the published works.
January 8, 2017
What a journey....
March 18, 2025
Surely Kierkegaard is wrong or was misled, or perhaps he was contrived by the times in which he lived, to seek after the ineffable in such a way that he could satisfy the absolute condition of a reflexive consciousness, in order to write as he did in the entries in his journals. I find that when Kierkegaard stated that he saw what St. Peter's vision for the weary souls whose lives were burdened by pain and misfortune, that to be a Catholic requires a faith that more fittingly resembled the calculating ambitions of a Satanic majesty, for the sole reason that the Catholic faith is rendered useless if it tries to convey spiritual truth in a human, non-revelatory way. To say it again in another way, I think that Kierkegaard would have been thoroughly aggrieved if he could see how his writings could be downloaded with the simple click of a mouse and could be assimilated in a way (technologically) that contradicts his idea that truth has a unique method of retaining its partiality by capturing its adherent in toto vacuo and so cannot be considered a primary source or the foundation of an ideological viewpoint. But surely Kierkegaard, were he alive today, would understand the we live in a society regulated by forces implying a division of labor that permits a certain number of thinkers to be philosophers or religious experts who thus enabled to preach Christ's doctrines, with the shamefaced realization that they must not be understood they are true or life-altering and so do not partake in the Christian spirit and so not truly believe in the resurrected Christ, in the spirit made whole and complete in the Holy Spirit, or truly that, through the transubstantiation of the host, Christ is made real and given actual life. In a similarly desultory way, others before me have pondered just how many copies of Kierkegaard's writings are in print in our current era and just how many copies of his works will there be in the future? Personally, I find him to be a source of comfort and an area where I can find rest and security, far away from the dangers and incitements of this tumultuous world. Perhaps in time I will be able to say, as Bob Dylan does, that Kierkegaard is my favorite philosopher, too?
May 18, 2021
"Kierkegaard had the curse of the solitary genius: repetition."---W.H. Auden. Yes, but what lovely and insightful repetition! Whether pining for his beloved Regina, who will never return, or God, who was here but left early, Kierkegaard never fails to amaze when looking into his own soul.
October 15, 2017
"Life can only be understood backwards."
-Søren Kierkegaard
-Søren Kierkegaard
Read
August 12, 2020Set aside for the time being on page 223
September 1, 2020
Some gems in here, but I never want to read the word 'Christendom' ever again.
May 29, 2025
What a wacky dude
April 11, 2021
A helpful selection and condensed digest of Kierkegaard’s very lengthy (12-volume) journals. This edition helpfully categorises and sorts the entries and notes into themes and discreet chapters. The work can nonetheless sometimes feel disjointed due to the widespread nature of the author’s thought and the genre of journals. Particularly recommend to students of Christian Theology and those interested in Existentialism, as Kierkegaard is “the Father of Existentialism”.
December 16, 2025
There is so much here. Great advice on parenthood. Namely, spontaneous mythological storytelling. Genius is a gift of the ability to talk to anyone! Careful of being mislead but anyway this guy, for a reason I cant explain, feels way more human than Nietzsche.
November 16, 2008
Absolutely the most magnificent Kierkegaard anthology out there. A must read, over and over again!
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