Quotes about Meaning
The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.
— Soren Kierkegaard
That God lets himself be born and becomes a human being, is no idle whim, something that occurs to him so as to have something to do, perhaps to put a stop to the boredom that has brashly been said to be bound up with being God-it is not to have an adventure. No, the fact that God does this is the seriousness of existence. And the seriousness in this seriousness is, in turn, that each shall have an opinion about it.
— Soren Kierkegaard
Deep within every man there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the tremendous household of millions and millions.
— Soren Kierkegaard
Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God.
— Soren Kierkegaard
To live in the unconditional, inhaling only the unconditional, is impossible to man; he perishes lioke the fish forced to live in the air. But on the other hand, without relating himself to the unconditional, man cannot in the deepest sense be said to 'live'.
— Soren Kierkegaard
If the sphere of paradox-religion is abolished, or explained away in aesthetics, an Apostle becomes neither more nor less than a genius, and then--good night, Christianity! Esprit and the Spirit, revelation and originality, a call from God and genius, all end by meaning more or less the same thing.
— Soren Kierkegaard
What is certain is that to become of interest, for one's life to be interesting, has nothing to do with what you can turn your hand to but is a fateful privilege which, like every privilege in the world of spirit, can only be purchased in deep pain.
— Soren Kierkegaard
Fortvivlelsens Misforhold er ikke et simpelt Misforhold, men et Misforhold i et Forhold, der forholder sig til sig selv, og er sat af et Andet, saa Misforholdet i hiint for sig værende Forhold tillige reflekterer sig uendeligt i Forholdet til den Magt, som satte det.
— Soren Kierkegaard
So soon as I talk I express the universal, and if I do not do so, no one can understand me.
— Soren Kierkegaard
For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul. 24
— Soren Kierkegaard
men var han ikke Synthese, kunde han slet ikke fortvivle, og var Synthesen ikke oprindeligt fra Guds Haand i det rette Forhold, kunde han heller ikke fortvivle.
— Soren Kierkegaard
For, humanly speaking, death is the last thing of all; and, humanly speaking, there is hope only so long as there is life. But Christianly understood death is by no means the last thing of all, hence it is only a little event within that which is all, an eternal life; and Christianly understood there is in death infinitely much more hope than merely humanly speaking there is when there not only is life but this life exhibits the fullest health and vigor.
— Soren Kierkegaard