Soren Kierkegaard — "The difference between the aesthetic and the ethical is that the aesthetic is im…"
The difference between the aesthetic and the ethical is that the aesthetic is immediate, while the ethical is a choice.
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
"The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self."
"The greatest misfortune of all is that people are not willing to live in the present, but are always looking forward to the future."
"The aesthetic is that which is immediately perceived, the ethical is that which is chosen, and the religious is that which is believed."
"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."
"To be a man is to be spirit."
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.