Soren Kierkegaard — "The paradox of faith is that the individual is higher than the universal."
The paradox of faith is that the individual is higher than the universal.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Soren Kierkegaard
"Marry, and you will regret it; don't marry, you will also regret it; marry or don't marry, you will regret it either way."
"What is a poet? An unhappy being who conceals profound agonies in his heart but whose lips are so formed that when the sighs and cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music."
"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."
"My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known."
"Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret …"
About Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Danish philosopher and theologian considered the founder of existentialism; Either/Or (1843) and Fear and Trembling (1843) explored the leap of faith. Closely associated with Friedrich Nietzsche (his existentialist successor working in the opposite theological direction) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (literary parallel exploring faith-and-despair). For an intellectual contrast, see G.W.F. Hegel, German Idealist of the totalizing system — Kierkegaard called Hegel's system a 'palatial residence' that nobody could actually live in — his entire authorship is structured against Hegelian abstraction in favor of the existing individual's inwardness.
The standard scholarly entry points to Soren Kierkegaard's work: Joakim Garff (University of Copenhagen, Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre) — Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography (2000); Walter Lowrie (Princeton, his major postwar English translator) — A Short Life of Kierkegaard (1942); C. Stephen Evans (Baylor University, philosophy of religion) — Kierkegaard: An Introduction (2009). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Soren Kierkegaard.