Explain Kierkegaard to me, if you please.

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Okay, I'm ready to learn.

Go.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 06:39 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.duiops.net/seresvivos/galeria/pinguinos/Leap%20of%20Faith,%20Adelie%20Penguin.jpg

― 冷明, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 06:46 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.comicartcollective.com/artImages/1C6B160C-7531-421C-9E7D230EAA62A9DC.jpg

― J.D., Tuesday, 13 March 2007 08:19 (eighteen years ago)

EMO! EMO!!

― the next grozart, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 09:10 (eighteen years ago)

冷明 OTM

except SK used the image of a spider i believe

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:09 (eighteen years ago)

"When a spider plunges from a fixed point to its consequences, it always sees before it an empty space where it can never set foot, no matter how it wriggles."

that quote doesn't get across how funny SK was, though

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:10 (eighteen years ago)

"Marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way."

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:11 (eighteen years ago)

he was very Woody Allenish, i think

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:19 (eighteen years ago)

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Believe me that there is nothing, no heresy, no sin, nothing whatsoever so abhorrent to God as following orders... following orders is infinitely more loathsome to Him than it is to a woman when she discovers that a man is making love to her out of a book of etiquette.

Fixed ideas are like a cramp, for instance, in the foot - the best remedy is to step on them.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

The only kind of worship God demands is imitation.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth. Look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity. Then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.

Just as only great souls are exposed to passions, it is only the great thinker who is exposed to paradoxes. A paradox is nothing more than a great thought in embryo. Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

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

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

The present generation is like a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed.

There is nothing a man fears more than getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.

Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt-cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Once you label me you negate me.

One can advise comfortably from a safe port.

Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager? I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

― Edward III, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 13:33 (eighteen years ago)

Silly penguin, you can't fly. Opus said so.

Keep the rest of them coming.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

"Binkley: The truth, Opus, is that you look more like a puffin than a penguin."

― Michael White, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

binkley <--> carrot

― kingfish, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 15:47 (eighteen years ago)

I've shared the OP & first response with my "Existential Lit" class, doods was in tears. The professor actually asked if he could use it later!

OK by you, 冷明 ?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 02:30 (eighteen years ago)

i used to be obsessed with kierkegaard (i fucking READ either/or and not for a class)... then i had sex for the first time, and that ended that.

― the table is the table, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 02:33 (eighteen years ago)

Hey I've had sex aplenty and I still love Either/Or. Fwiw.

Still my favorite first answer ever.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:09 (eighteen years ago)

Is Either/Or the one to read? I read Fear and Trembling and it wasn't quite aimed at me, but I'd read more by him.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 01:11 (eighteen years ago)

I'd say that's the one if you're gonna do a biggun, but The Essential Kirkegaard is a really great anthology.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 01:14 (eighteen years ago)

If anything gets published, i want co-credit.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 01:30 (eighteen years ago)

I've visited Kierkegaard's grave in the Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen. It's a modest little thing. Wonderful cemetary though.

― DavidM, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 09:55 (eighteen years ago)

Cool, apparently his orginal headstone is in a museum now and the replacement was much smaller So much guilt , no wonder it rang true, I never got around to the man himself but Kierkegaard:Within your grasp by Shelley OHara was a great place to start for me.

― Kiwi, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:19 (eighteen years ago)

isn't kierkegaard just, like, the christian nietzsche?

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 04:00 (eighteen years ago)

See, you say that as if it isn't awesome.

I'm not so interested in an "Essential" book. Those give me headaches.

― Casuistry, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 05:16 (eighteen years ago)

i didn't mean to say "just" actually. kierkegaard also way more funny than nietzsche.

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 05:37 (eighteen years ago)

Max, I'd disagree that Kierk is funnier, but otherwise you are otm.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 14:10 (eighteen years ago)

he published either/or under the pen name "victorious hermit", kept the book's authorship secret for years, all the while writing newspaper articles speculating about who the author could be. kierkagaard was definitely more of a prankster than nietzsche.

― Edward III, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 14:56 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, Ntz never wrote books under pseudonyms disagreeing with books he had written under different pseudonyms. Nietzsche's funny, no doubt, especially when he's taking people on, but Kierkegaard actually makes me laugh sometimes.

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:23 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

What if, rather than speaking or dreaming of an absolute beginning, we speak of a leap?

― max, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:16 (eighteen years ago)

kierkegaard=absolutely the best philosopher to read after a bad break-up

― max, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:19 (eighteen years ago)

one of my all-time favorites:

One sticks one’s finger into the soil to tell by the smell in what land one is: I stick my finger in existence — it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?

― max, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:20 (eighteen years ago)

this is now my facebook profile

― max, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:21 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

anyone read his "the present age"? just picked it up, sounds like a decent read. not one of his more popular works, though.

― the chicano incarnation of benito juarez (primalfixations), Tuesday, 3 February 2009 03:16 (seventeen years ago)

I think it's the most accessible thing he ever wrote.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 03:49 (seventeen years ago)

I start weird threads when I'm drunk.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 03:50 (seventeen years ago)

thanks hoos.

― the chicano incarnation of benito juarez (primalfixations), Tuesday, 3 February 2009 04:43 (seventeen years ago)

four years pass...

https://twitter.com/KimKierkegaard

― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 29 March 2013 20:47 (twelve years ago)

six months pass...

We bury a man, we follow him to the grave, we throw three spades of earth on him, we ride out in a coach, we ride home in a coach, we take comfort in the thought that a long life awaits us. But how long is threescore years and ten? Why not finish it at once? Why not stay out there and step down into the grave with him, and draw lots for who should have the misfortune to be the last alive to throw the last three spades of earth on the last of the dead?

― j., Saturday, 26 October 2013 04:52 (twelve years ago)

i was just thinking something like that yesterday. i should really read something by this guy

― Spectrum, Saturday, 26 October 2013 05:29 (twelve years ago)

two years pass...

look it's just not as hard to become a christian as dude thinks

― j., Wednesday, 11 May 2016 04:23 (nine years ago)

http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m61lsfjuGy1qd64gco1_1280.png

― Treeship, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 04:28 (nine years ago)

a bold effort to forge a hipster Christianity in the face of all the norms being into Christianity

― a poptimist consumed with celebrity culture and vacuous pop music (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 11 May 2016 05:50 (nine years ago)

if it's not hard then you're doing it wrong

(Kierkegaard as proto-house)

― droit au butt (Euler), Wednesday, 11 May 2016 08:38 (nine years ago)

ya if you've not thought why abraham killed his son you're not a christian

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 11 May 2016 16:56 (nine years ago)

wait does abraham eventually kill one of his sons?

― Sufjan Grafton, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 17:09 (nine years ago)

he kills one for killing the other one, read your bible man

― j., Wednesday, 11 May 2016 17:09 (nine years ago)

sorry, i am catholic and we don't do that

― Sufjan Grafton, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 17:25 (nine years ago)

if you're ever going to kill one of your sons, you should first almost kill one of your sons before god stops you. that way it will be impossible for anyone to google which son you actually killed before a job interview.

― Sufjan Grafton, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 17:58 (nine years ago)

Did Kierkegaard say that?

― jmm, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 18:10 (nine years ago)

no but close it was - bob marley

― j., Wednesday, 11 May 2016 18:12 (nine years ago)

idk i'm just gonna leave this here
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/opinion/if-philosophy-wont-diversify-lets-call-it-what-it-really-is.html

― ian, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 18:15 (nine years ago)

sorry, i am catholic and we don't do that

lol

― always be charging (rip van wanko), Wednesday, 11 May 2016 18:28 (nine years ago)

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