Сёрен Обю Кьеркегор цитаты

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„Стремиться вперед — значит потерять покой, оставаться на месте — значит потерять себя.“

„Женишься – будешь жалеть, и не женишься – будешь жалеть. Так что женись – не женись, жалеть будешь в любом случае. В любом случае все равно будешь жалеть.
Посмеешься ли над глупостью этого мира – будешь жалеть, поплачешь ли над ней – тоже будешь жалеть. Так что плачь или смейся, жалеть будешь в любом случае. В любом случае все равно будешь жалеть.
Повесишься – будешь жалеть, не повесишься – тоже будешь жалеть. Так что вешайся – не вешайся, жалеть будешь в любом случае. В любом случае все равно будешь жалеть.
Вот, господа, в чем заключается жизненная мудрость… Заключается – не заключается, все равно будешь об этом жалеть.“

„Нет более прекрасного времени в жизни, чем самые первые дни любви, когда с каждой встречей, взглядом и надеждой что-то новое и радостное поселяется в твоей душе.“

„Люди никогда не пользуются свободой, которая у них есть, но требуют той, которой у них нет.“

„Пожар начался в театре за кулисами. Клоун вышел на сцену, чтобы предупредить зрителей об опасности. Они решили, что это шутка и начали аплодировать. Клоун с мольбой повторил предупреждение — в зале началась овация. Возможно и наш мир окончится так же: под аплодисменты зрителей, считающих, что это всего лишь шутка.“

„Наша жизнь представляет собой результат преобладающих в нас мыслей.“

„Мой взгляд на жизнь лишен всякого смысла, — мне кажется, что какой-то злой дух надел мне на нос очки, одно стекло которых увеличивает все до чудовищных размеров, а другое до такой же степени уменьшает.“

„Что будет? Что принесёт грядущее? Я этого не знаю, я ни о чём не догадываюсь. Когда паук, потеряв точку опоры, срывается в неизвестность последствий, он неизменно видит перед собой пустое пространство, где не за что зацепиться, сколько ни барахтайся. Вот так и со мною; впереди неизменно пустое пространство, а то, что гонит меня вперёд, есть последствие, оставленное позади. Эта жизнь лишена смысла и ужасна, невыносима.“

„Удивительно! С каким страхом цепляется человек за жизнь, одинаково боясь и утратить ее, и удержать за собою. Иногда мне приходит мысль сделать решительный шаг, перед которым все мои прежние эксперименты окажутся детской забавой: хочу пуститься в неведомый путь великих открытий. Кораблю, спускаемому с верфи в море, салютуют выстрелами, так же хотел бы я отсалютовать и себе самому. А между тем… Мужества, что ли, не хватает у меня? Хоть бы кирпич свалился мне на голову и пришиб меня до смерти, — все был бы исход!“

„В прежние времена говаривали: «Жаль, что в мире никогда ничего не происходит по пасторским проповедям». Но, может быть, придёт ещё время — пожалуй, благодаря философии, — когда можно будет сказать: «К счастью, в мире никогда ничего не происходит по пасторским проповедям», ибо в жизни есть хоть какой-то смысл, а в его проповедях — совсем никакого.“

„Обыкновенно, чем больше развита у человека способность мыслить и соображать, тем быстрее и искуснее мысли его подбираются к предмету, осматривают его со всех сторон и затем вполне им овладевают.“

„Страх — это желание того, чего страшатся, это симпатическая антипатия; страх — это чуждая сила, которая захватывает индивида, и все же он не может освободиться от нее, — да и не хочет, ибо человек страшится, но страшится он того, что желает. Страх делает индивида бессильным, а первый грех всегда происходит в слабости; потому-то он по своей видимости случается как бы безотчетно, но такое отсутствие осознания и есть настоящая ловушка.“

„… свобода — это волшебная лампа; когда человек трет ее с этической страстью, то для него возникает Бог.“

„Человек всегда надеется на то, что ему следовало бы вспоминать, и вечно вспоминает то, на что ему следовало бы надеяться.“

„Где «Я»? Что значит сказать «мир»? Каково значение этого слова? Кто заманил меня сюда и покинул здесь? Кто «Я»? Как я оказался в этом мире? Почему меня не спросили, почему не познакомили с его правилами, а просто всунули в него, как будто я был куплен у продавца душ? Как я оказался вовлечённым в это громадное предприятие, называемое действительностью? Разве это не дело выбора? Кому я могу пожаловаться?“

„Какой смысл в слове «моя»? Ведь оно не обозначает того, что принадлежит мне, но то, чему принадлежу я, что заключает в себе всё мое существо. Это «то» моё лишь настолько, насколько я принадлежу ему сам. «Мой Бог» ведь это не тот Бог, Который принадлежит мне, но тот, Которому принадлежу я. То же самое и относительно выражений: „моя родина“, „моё призвание“, „моя страсть“, „моя надежда.““

„Ничего не хочется… Ехать не хочется — слишком сильное движение: пешком идти не хочется — устанешь; лечь? — придется валяться попусту или снова вставать, а ни того, ни другого не хочется… Словом, ничего не хочется.“

„Нам была дана заповедь: «Люби ближнего, как самого себя», — но если правильно понять эту заповедь, то можно прочесть в ней и обратное утверждение: «Ты обязан любить себя должным образом».“

„У меня нет ничего, но я ни в чём не нуждаюсь.“

„Теперь я грущу лишь по той первой грусти. Что такое юность? — Сон.. Что такое любовь? — Сновидение…“

„Я не хочу, чтобы она была в духовной зависимости от меня; она должна быть вполне свободна: любовь может развиваться лишь на свободе, и одна свобода обусловливает приятное и вечно весёлое времяпровождение.“

„Старость, как известно, осуществляет мечты юности; пример — Свифт: в молодости он построил дом для умалишенных, а на старости лет и сам поселился в нем.“

„Я не видел ничего потому, что слишком пристально смотрел.“

„Страх — это головокружение свободы.“

„Я предпочитаю разговаривать с детьми — есть, по крайней мере, надежда, что из них выйдут разумные существа, тогда как те, которые считают себя таковыми… увы!“

„Жизнь превратилась для меня в горький напиток, а мне еще приходится принимать его медленно, по счету, как капли…“

„Никто не возвращается из царства мертвых… — никто не является на свет без слез… — никто не спрашивает, когда хочешь явиться… — никто не справляется, когда желаешь уйти…“

„Чем больше стараешься спрятаться, тем неприятнее, если тебя откроют в твоём убежище.“

„Мёртвая буква действует иногда сильнее живого слова.“

„Я не способен к духовному акту веры, не могу, закрыв глаза, слепо ринуться в абсурд; для меня это невозможно, но я не хвалюсь этим.“

„Всё существующее разумно; я был и буду оптимистом!“

„Когда разрушается действительность, сам этот разрыв в целом гораздо более радикален, тут рвется каждый нерв, а разрыв, рассматриваемый именно как разрыв, уже содержит в себе некую завершенность; когда же разрушается возможность, минутная боль может быть не столь велика, однако такой разрыв очень часто оставляет в целости и неприкосновенности какую-нибудь тоненькую связку, которая становится затем постоянным проводником длящейся боли.“

„Повесься, ты пожалеешь об этом; не повесься, ты и об этом пожалеешь, в том и другом случае ты пожалеешь об этом. Таково, милостивые государи, резюме всей жизненной мудрости…“

“Aristotle’s view that philosophy begins with wonder, not as in our day with doubt, is a positive point of departure for philosophy. Indeed, the world will no doubt learn that it does not do to begin with the negative, and the reason for success up to the present is that philosophers have never quite surrendered to the negative and thus have never earnestly done what they have said. They merely flirt with doubt.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, the birds had nests, the foxes had dens, and you had no place where you could lay your head. You were homeless in the world-yet you yourself were a hiding place, the only place where the sinner could flee. And so even this very day you are a hiding place. When the sinner flees to you, hides himself with you, is hidden in you, he is eternally kept safe, since love hides a multitude of sins. P. 182”

“Sin is man’s destruction. Only the rust of sin can consume the soul-or eternally destroy it. For here indeed is the remarkable thing from which already that simple wise man of olden time derived a proof of the immortality of the soul, that the sickness of the soul (sin) is not like bodily sickness which kills the body. Sin is not a passage-way which a man has to pass through once, for from it one shall flee; sin is not (like suffering) the instant, but an eternal fall from the eternal, hence it is not ‘once’, and it cannot possibly be that its ‘once’ is no time. No, just as between the rich man in hell and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom there was a yawning gulf fixed, so is there also a yawning distinction between suffering and sin. Let us not confuse it, lest talk about suffering might become less frank-hearted, because it had also sin in mind, and this less frank-hearted talk might be boldly impudent inasmuch as it is talking this way about sin. This precisely is the Christian position, that there is this infinite distinction between evil and evil, as they are confusedly named; this precisely is the Christian characteristic, to talk of temporal sufferings ever more and more frank-heartedly, more triumphantly, more joyfully, because Christianity regarded, sin, and sin only, is destructive.”

“Imagine a lover who has received a letter from his beloved – I assume that God’s Word is just as precious to you as this letter is to the lover. I assume that you read and think you ought to read God’s Word in the same way the lover reads this letter.”

“Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.”

“Concepts, like individuals, have their histories, and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals.”

“The world is rejuvenated, but as Heine so wittily remarked, it was rejuvenated by romanticism to such a degree that it became a baby again.”

“There is a comfort that had not yet come into existence while Christ lived, which he therefore could not offer to anyone: the comfort of his death as the Atonement, as the pledge that the sins are forgiven. In this lifetime Christ is for his contemporaries primarily the prototype, even though he is the Savior and even though his life is suffering, so that even in his lifetime he can be said to bear the sins of the world; but the salient point is that he is the prototype. P. 159”

“To understand oneself in existence is the Christian principle, except that this self has received much richer and much more profound qualifications that are even more difficult to understand together with existing. The believer is a subjective thinker, and the difference, is only between the simple person and the simple wise person. Here again the oneself is not humanity in general, subjectivity in general, and other such things, whereas everything becomes easy inasmuch as the difficulty is removed and the whole matter is shifted over into the shadow play of abstraction.”

“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, For Self-Examination, Hong p. 76-77”

“The life-giving Spirit is the very one who slays you; the first thing the life-giving Spirit says is that you must enter into death, that you must die to – it is this way in order that you many not take Christianity in vain. A life-giving Spirit – that is the invitation; who would not willingly take hold of it! But die first – that is the halt!”

“Translated by Todd Nichol along with Prefaces 1997”

“If you listen carefully, in what most definitely must be called Gospel you yourself will hear also rigorousness. For example, what Jesus says to the centurion from Capernaum, “If we will apply these words to ourselves, we are obliged to say, “Be it done for you as you believe; if you have faith unto salvation, then you will be saved.” (Matthew 8:13) How lenient, how merciful! But is it also certain, then, that I have faith-I surely cannot summarily transfer to myself the fact that the centurion believed, as if I had faith because the centurion had it. Let us suppose that someone asked Christianity, “Is it also certain, then, that I have faith?” Christianity would answer, “Be it done for you as you believe.””

“Then he rises from the table and goes out into the Garden of Gethsemane; there he sinks down – oh, that it had happened already! He sinks down, doomed (dodsens) – indeed, was he really any more a dying man (Doende) on the cross than in Gethsemane! If the suffering on the cross was a death agony – ah, this agony in prayer was also a mortal combat; nor was it bloodless, for his sweat fell like drops of blood to the earth.”

“I have never definitely broken with Christianity nor renounced it. To attack it has never been my thought. No, from the time when there could be any question of the employment of my powers, I was firmly determined to employ them all to defend Christianity, or in any case to present it in its true form.”

“Imagine a person who has been and is addicted to a passion. There comes a moment (as it does to everyone, perhaps many times – alas, perhaps many times in vain!), a moment he seems to be brought to a halt: a good resolution is awakening. Imagine that one morning he said to himself (let us suppose him to be a gambler), “I solemnly vow that I will nevermore have anything to do with gambling, never – tonight will be the last time” – ah, my friend, he s lost! I would rather bet on the opposite, however strange that may seem. If there was a gambler who said to himself, “Well, now, you may gamble every blessed day all the rest of your life – but tonight you are going to leave it alone,” and he did – ah, my friend, he is saved for sure! The first gambler’s resolution is a trick by the craving, and the second gambler’s is to fool the craving.”

“The two guides call out to a man early and late. And yet, no, for when remorse calls to a man it is always late. The call to find the way again by seeking out God in the confession of sins is always at the eleventh hour. Whether you are young or old, whether you have sinned much or little, whether you have offended much or neglected much, the guilt makes this call come at the eleventh hour. The inner agitation of the heart understands what remorse insists upon, that the eleventh hour has come. For in the sense of time, the old man’s age is the eleventh hour; and the instant of death, the final moment in the eleventh hour. The indolent youth speaks of a long life that lies before him. The indolent old man hopes that his death is still a long way off. But repentance and remorse belong to the eternal in a man.”

“On the whole, there is one thing that is very common; you can find it in each and in everyone, in yourself just as I find it in myself: sin and sins. There is one thing that is very rare: true sorrow over one’s sin, which no doubt is why it is made necessary every holy day to pray in the opening prayer in the church service “that we might learn to sorrow over our sins.””

“If it is God who gives the spirit of power and strength, then it is also the same God who gives “the spirt of self-control,” and if ignoble cowardice and fear of people are just as detestable in any age, the excess of eager enthusiasm, “zeal without wisdom,” are no less corrupting and at times are fundamentally just as detestable, just as blasphemous.”

“But this I thought was the meaning of life, that the individual shook off the habit of accepting the favors of difference, should that be tempting, steeled himself against its humiliation, should that weigh down on him, in order to find the universal, what is common to all human beings, to concern oneself only with that. Oh! How beautiful to lose oneself in this way. But then I thought again that in the having of this concern the meaning of life was to be concerned for oneself as if the particular individual were all there was. Oh! How beautiful thus to find oneself in the universal! If the universal is the rule then the individual is the paradigm [corrected from demand]; if the universal is the demand then the universal is the fulfillment; if the universal is everything, if the universal says everything, then the particular individual believes that the everything is said about him-him alone. So if the place and context here did not require signature, none would be needed, for again it is infinitely inconsequential who has said it (as though the favored one said it, the one who was wronged being in no position to say it, since after all they all have it in them to do it).”

“It is as useless for a person to want first of all to decide the externals and after that the fundamentals as it is for a cosmic body, thinking to form itself, first of all to decide the nature of its surface, to what bodies it should turn its light, which its dark side, without first letting the harmony of centrifugal and centripetal forces realize its existence and letting the rest come of itself. One must learn to know oneself before knowing anything else (gnothi seauton). Not until a person has inwardly understood himself and then sees the course he is to take does his life gain peace and meaning.”

“It is true that in the confessional it is the pastor who preaches; but the true preacher is still the secret-sharer in your inner being. The pastor can preach only in vague generalities; the preacher in your inner being is just the opposite; he speaks simply and solely about you, to you, and within you. P. 183”

“Every human being is tried this way in the active service of expectancy. Now comes the fulfillment and relieves him, but soon he is again placed on reconnaissance for expectancy; then he is again relieved, but as long as there is any future for him, he has not yet finished his service. And while human life goes on this way in very diverse expectancy, expecting very different things according to different times and occasions and in different frames of mind, all life is again one nightwatch of expectancy.”

“Self-accusation is the possibility of justification. The tax collector accused himself. There was no one else who accused him. It was not civic justice that seized him by the chest and said, “You are a criminal”: it was not the people whom he perhaps cheated who beat him on the breast and said, “You are a cheater” – but he beat his own breast and said, “God be merciful to me, a sinner. He accused himself, that he was a sinner before God.”

“Forgetting when God does it in relation to sin, is the opposite of creating, since to create is to bring forth from nothing and to forget is to take back into nothing. What is hidden from my eyes, that I have never seen; but what is hidden behind my back, that I have seen. The one who loves forgives in this way; he forgives, he forgets, he blots out the sin, in love he turns toward the one he forgives; but when he turns toward him, he of course, cannot see what is lying behind his back.”

“His life from the very beginning is a story of temptation; it is not only one particular period in his life, the forty days, that is the story of temptation – no his whole life is a story of temptation (just as it is also of suffering). Every moment of his life he is tempted – that is, he has this possibility in his power, to take his calling, his task, in vain.”

“Is not “Christendom” the most colossal attempt at serving God, not by following Christ, as He required, and suffering for the doctrine, but instead of that, by “building the sepulchers of the prophets and garnishing the tombs of the righteous.””

“A man who for a long time has gone around hiding a secret becomes mentally deranged. At this point one would imagine that his secret would have to come out, but despite his derangement his soul still sticks to its hideout, and those around him become even more convinced that the false story he told to deceive them is the truth. He is healed of his insanity, knows everything that has gone on, and thereby perceives that nothing has been betrayed. Was this gratifying to him or not; he might wish to have disposed of his secret in his madness; it seems as if there were a fate which forced him to remain in his secret and would not let him go away from it. Or was it for the best, was there a guardian spirit who helped him keep his secret.”