Soren Kierkegaard Self Quotations

Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.

A human being is a spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation.

The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.

Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to itself... Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of possibility and necessity, in short, it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self.

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.

Be that self which one truly is.

I go fishing for a thousand monsters in the depths of my own self

This is the miracle of life: that each person who heeds him or herself knows what no scientist can ever know: who he or she is.

Only one human being recognized as one's neighbour is necessary in order to cure a man of self-love

It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.