Soren Kierkegaard Love Quotes & Sayings

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all. — Soren Kierkegaard

Comparison is the most dangerous acquaintance love can make. — Soren Kierkegaard

Don't forget to love yourself. — Soren Kierkegaard

The slaves of paltriness, the frogs in life's swamp, will naturally cry out, "Such a love is foolishness. The rich brewer's widow is a match fully as good and respectable." Let them croak. — Soren Kierkegaard

Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God. — Soren Kierkegaard

My soul always reverts to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There at least one feels that it's human beings talking. There people hate, people love, people murder their enemy and curse his descendants through all generations, there people sin. — Soren Kierkegaard

I have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains silent. — Soren Kierkegaard

Love has many mysteries, and this first infatuation is also a mystery, even if a minor one - most people who rush into it get engaged or indulge in other foolish pranks, and then it's all over with the twinkling of an eye and they don't know what they have conquered or what they have lost. — Soren Kierkegaard

To love another person is to help them love God. — Soren Kierkegaard

Take it and return it: the kiss of love. — Soren Kierkegaard

The commandment is that you shall love, but when you understand life and yourself, then it is as if you should not need to be commanded, because to love human beings is still the only thing worth living for; without this life you really do not live. — Soren Kierkegaard

He who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all. — Soren Kierkegaard

Now she has power and passion and the struggle has significance for me-let the momentary consequences be what they may. Suppose that in her pride she becomes giddy, suppose that she does break with me-all right! -she has her freedom, but she will still belong to me. That the engagement should bind her is silly-I want to possess her only in her freedom — Soren Kierkegaard

Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally and happily secured against despair. — Soren Kierkegaard

It is comic that a mentally disordered man picks up any piece of granite and carries it around because he thinks it is money, and in the same way it is comic that Don Juan has 1,003 mistresses, for the number simply indicates that they have no value. Therefore, one should stay within one's means in the use of the word "love". — Soren Kierkegaard

It is a wonderful thing to see a first-rate philosopher at prayer. Tough-minded thinking and tenderhearted reverence are friends, not enemies. We have for too long separated the head from the heart, and we are the lesser for it. We love God with the mind and we love God with the heart. In reality, we are descending with the mind into the heart and there standing before God in ceaseless wonder and endless praise. As the mind and the heart work in concert, a kind of loving rationality pervades all we say and do. This brings unity to us and glory to God. — Soren Kierkegaard

What is youth? A dream. What is love? The dream's content. — Soren Kierkegaard

Whatever the one generation may learn from the other, that which is genuinely human no generation learns from the foregoing ... Thus no generation has learned from another to love, no generation begins at any other point than at the beginning, no generation has a shorter task assigned to it than had the previous generation. — Soren Kierkegaard

Only one human being recognized as one's neighbour is necessary in order to cure a man of self-love — Soren Kierkegaard

No one shall be forgotten who was great in this world; but everyone was great in his own way, and everyone in proportion to the greatness of what he loved. — Soren Kierkegaard

Let other complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men's thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy ... This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings: they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin. — Soren Kierkegaard

It is not where we breathe, but where we Love, that we live. — Soren Kierkegaard

No time of life is so beautiful as the early days of love, when with every meeting, every glance, one fetches something new home to rejoice over. — Soren Kierkegaard

Love believes all things and yet is never deceived. — Soren Kierkegaard

she does not suspect how much reason I have for deprecating all sympathy. — Soren Kierkegaard

And although this (marital love) cannot be portrayed artistically, then let your consolation be, as it is mine, that we are not to read about or listen to or look at what is highest and the most beautiful in life, but are, if you please, to live it.
Therefore, when I readily admit that romantic love lends itself much better to artistic portrayal than marital love, this does not at all mean that it is less esthetic than the other - on the contrary, it is more esthetic. — Soren Kierkegaard

He who does not know how to encircle a girl so that she loses sight of everything he does not want her to see, he who does not know how to poetize himself into a girl so that it is from her that everything proceeds as he wants it-he is and remains a bungler — Soren Kierkegaard

In the life of the individual when love awakens it is older than everything else, because when it exists it seems as if it has existed for a long time; it presupposes itself back into the
distant past until all searching ends in the inexplicable origin. — Soren Kierkegaard

What a difference! Under the esthetic sky, everything is buoyant, beautiful, transient! when ethics arrives on the scene, everything becomes harsh, angular and infinitely boring — Soren Kierkegaard

For love is exultant when it unites equals, but it is triumphant when it makes that which was unequal equal in love. — Soren Kierkegaard

They were not unfortunate girls who, as outcasts or in the belief that they were cast out by society, grieved wholesomely and intensely and, once in a while at times when the heart was too full, ventilated it in hate or forgiveness. No visible change took place in them; they lived in the accustomed context, were respected as always, and yet they were changed, almost unaccountably to themselves and incomprehensibly to others. Their lives were not cracked or broken, as others' were, but were bent into themselves; lost to others, they futilely sought to find themselves. — Soren Kierkegaard

When you open the door which you shut in order to pray to God, the first person you meet as you go out is your neighbour whom you shall love. Wonderful! — Soren Kierkegaard

Men think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes
and your enemy looks just like your neighbor. — Soren Kierkegaard

Oh, can I really believe the poet's tales, that when one first sees the object of one's love, one imagines one has seen her long ago, that all love like all knowledge is remembrance, that
love too has its prophecies in the individual. — Soren Kierkegaard

She awakens first at the touch of love; before that time she is a dream, yet in her dream life we can distinguish two stages: in the first, love dreams about her; in the second, she dreams about love. — Soren Kierkegaard

Ulysses was not comely, but he was eloquent,
Yet he fired two goddesses of the sea with love — Soren Kierkegaard

In the end, therefore, money will be the one thing people will desire, which is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am saved ... He would die with nothing to reproach himself with, and under the impression that if only he had had the money he might really have lived and might even have achieved something great. — Soren Kierkegaard

This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love. — Soren Kierkegaard

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. — Soren Kierkegaard

Out of love, God becomes man. He says: See, here is what it is to be a human being. — Soren Kierkegaard

A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized prayer is listening. — Soren Kierkegaard

The resolving of the ethical, is freedom; the negative resolution also has this, but the freedom, blank and bare, is as if tongue-tied, hard to express, and generally has something hard in its nature. Falling in love, however, promptly sets it to music, even if this composition contains a very difficult passage. — Soren Kierkegaard

That which is truly human no generation learns from the one before it. No generation learns from another how to love. No generation has a shorter task assigned to it except insofar as the previous generation shirked its task and deluded itself. — Soren Kierkegaard

Let others mock at you, oppose you, when you are under the influence of any passion; do not be in the least offended with those who mock at or oppose you, for they do you good; crucify your self-love and acknowledge the wrong, the error of your heart. But have the deepest pity for those who mock at words and works of faith and piety, of righteousness; for those who oppose the good which you are doing ... God preserve you - getting exasperated at them ... — Soren Kierkegaard

With respect to love we speak continually about perfection and the perfect person. With respect to love Christianity also speaks continually about perfection and the perfect person. Alas, but we men talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity speaks about being the perfect person who limitlessly loves the person he sees. — Soren Kierkegaard

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is an unchristian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what not, it was the work of love which was his life. — Soren Kierkegaard

My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return. — Soren Kierkegaard

It is presumptuous ridicule of God if someone thinks that only the person who desires great wealth chooses mammon. Alas, the person who insists on having a penny without God, wants to have a penny all for himself. He thereby chooses mammon. A penny is enough, the choice is made, he has chosen mammon; that it is little makes not the slightest difference. The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world hatred of God. — Soren Kierkegaard

I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably blissful, when it is absent, I long for it more vehemently than does the lover for his object. — Soren Kierkegaard

Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term. — Soren Kierkegaard

What distinguishes all love from lust is the fact that it bears an impress of eternity. — Soren Kierkegaard

Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself; ... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all. — Soren Kierkegaard

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant ... My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love. — Soren Kierkegaard

I shall be your poet! I do not want to be a poet for others; make your appearance, and I shall be your poet. I shall eat my own poem, and that will be my food. Or do you find me unworthy? Just as a temple dancer dances to the honor of the god Gudutl, so I have consecrated myself to your service; light, thinly clad, limber, unarmed, I renounce everything. I own nothing; I desire to own nothing; I love nothing; I have nothing to lose-but have I not thereby become more worthy of you, you who long ago must have been tired of depriving people of what they love, tired of their craven sniveling and craven pleading. Surprise me-I am ready — Soren Kierkegaard

When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world - no matter how imperfect - becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love. — Soren Kierkegaard

The majority enjoy a young girl as they enjoy a glass of champagne, at one effervescent moment-oh, yes, that is really beautiful, and with many a young girl that is undoubtedly the most one can attain, but here there is more. If an individual is too fragile to stand clarity and transparency, well, then one enjoys what is unclear, but apparently she can stand it. The more devotedness one can bring to erotic love, the more interesting. This momentary enjoyment is a rape, even if not outwardly but nevertheless mentally, and in a rape there is only imagined enjoyment; it is like a stolen kiss, something nondescript. No, if one can bring it to a point where a girl has but one task for her freedom, to give herself, so that she feels her whole happiness in this, so that she practically begs for this devotedness and yet is free-only then is there enjoyment, but this always takes a discerning touch — Soren Kierkegaard

Love for that princess became for him the expression for an eternal love, assumed a religious character, was transfigured into a love for the Eternal Being, which did to be sure deny him the fulfilment of his love, yet reconciled him again by the eternal consciousness of its validity in the form of eternity, which no reality can take from him. — Soren Kierkegaard

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself. — Soren Kierkegaard

In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy. — Soren Kierkegaard

If anyone thinks he has faith and yet is indifferent towards this possession, is neither cold nor hot, he can be certain that he does not have faith. If anyone thinks he is Christian and yet is indifferent towards his being a Christian, then he really is not one at all. What would we think of a man who affirmed that he was in love and also that it was a matter of indifference to him? — Soren Kierkegaard

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. — Soren Kierkegaard

Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle. — Soren Kierkegaard

.....love yourself. — Soren Kierkegaard

Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see — Soren Kierkegaard

When I was very young and in the cave of Trophonius I forgot to laugh. Then, when I got older, when I opened my eyes and saw the real world, I began to laugh and I haven't stopped since. I saw that the meaning of life was to get a livelihood, that the goal of life was to be a High Court judge, that the bright joy of love was to marry a well-off girl, that the blessing of friendship was to help each other out of a financial tight spot, that wisdom was what the majority said it was, that passion was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined 10 rix-dollars, that cordiality was to say 'You're welcome' after a meal, and that the fear of God was to go to communion once a year. That's what I saw. And I laughed. — Soren Kierkegaard

[T]he content of the discourse should be about loving the un-lovable object ... The beloved and the friend are the immediate and direct objects of immediate love, the choice of passion and of inclination. And what is the ugly? It is the neighbor, whom one shall love (373). — Soren Kierkegaard

However much one generation learns from another, it can never learn from its predecessor the genuinely human factor. In this respect every generation begins afresh. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love, no generation can begin other than at the beginning. — Soren Kierkegaard

There is nothing so seductive to a girl as to be loved by a poetic-depressive type. And if she is vain enough to deceive herself into thinking that she loves him faithfully by clinging to him instead of giving him up, then her task will be easy. She will enjoy both the distinction and the good conscience of being faithful, and at the same time the most finely distilled romantic love. God save everyone from such faithfulness! — Soren Kierkegaard

You love the accidental. A smile from a pretty girl in an interesting situation, a stolen glance, that is what you are hunting for, that is a motif for your aimless fantasy. You who always pride yourself on being an observateur must, in return, put up with becoming an object of observation. Ah, you are a strange fellow, one moment a child, the next an old man; one moment you are thinking most earnestly about the most important scholarly problems, how you will devote your life to them, and the next you are a lovesick fool. But you are a long way from marriage. — Soren Kierkegaard

It will be easy for us once we receive the ball of yarn from Ariadne (love) and then go through all the mazes of the labyrinth (life) and kill the monster. But how many are there who plunge
into life (the labyrinth) without taking that precaution? — Soren Kierkegaard

Let us speak of this in purely human terms. Oh! how pitiable a person who has never felt the loving urge to sacrifice everything for love, who has therefore been unable to do so! — Soren Kierkegaard