Soren Kierkegaard — "The good is the only thing that can be done for its own sake."
The good is the only thing that can be done for its own sake.
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More from Soren Kierkegaard
"The greatest good is not to be born, the second is to die soon."
"What is important is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."
"The dialectic of despair is this, that the despairing self is unable to get rid of itself."
"The most tremendous energy of which human nature is capable is the agony of being a self."
"I do not call myself a Christian."
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.