Existence Quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?

— Soren Kierkegaard

“Come, sleep and death; you promise nothing, you hold everything.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing.

— Soren Kierkegaard

Just as in the great moment of resignation one does not mediate but chooses, now the task is to gain proficiency in…

— Soren Kierkegaard

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they…

— Soren Kierkegaard

All essential knowledge relates to existence, or only such knowledge as has an essential relationship to existence is essential knowledge.

— Soren Kierkegaard

Philosophy always requires something more, requires the eternal, the true, in contrast to which even the fullest existence as such is but…

— Soren Kierkegaard

With respect to physical existence, one needs little, and to the degree that one needs less, the more perfect one is.

— Soren Kierkegaard

Preparation for becoming attentive to Christianity does not consist in reading many books ... but in fuller immersion in existence.

— Soren Kierkegaard

I stick my finger into existence.. it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? What is this thing called the…

— Soren Kierkegaard

Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence; its giddiness, like that which comes from gazing down into an…

— Soren Kierkegaard

Knowledge of the truth I may perhaps have attained to; happiness certainly not. What shall I do? Accomplish something in the world,…

— Soren Kierkegaard

Irony is the birth-pangs of the objective mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I , between existence and the idea…

— Soren Kierkegaard

Pain reconciles one to existence. Infinite resignation is that shirt in the old fable. The thread is spun with tears, bleached by…

— Soren Kierkegaard

How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that God exists unless one has already allowed Himself to ignore Him? A king's…

— Soren Kierkegaard