“I can understand myself in believing, although in addition I can in a relative misunderstanding comprehend the human aspect of this life: but comprehend faith or comprehend Christ, I cannot.”

— Sören Kierkegaard

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), p. 65

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I can understand myself in believing, although in addition I can in a relative misunderstanding comprehend the human as…" by Sören Kierkegaard?

Sören Kierkegaard 309

Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855

Related quotes

“The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

A lecture at Königsberg (1775), as quoted in A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources (1946) by H. L. Mencken, p. 955
Context: The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him. The uses of prayer are thus only subjective.

“I know that there are many heads which cannot comprehend and master a proposition in political economy. I believe that study is the highest exercise of the human mind.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/feb/27/commercial-policy-customs-corn-laws in the House of Commons (27 February 1846).
1840s

“Although I am not a member of any denomination, I do believe that there is something greater than man. Some call it God, others call it something else. For me, it's about understanding that we humans are small in relation to nature, in relation to the powers that are bigger and stronger than man can ever comprehend. I find that in a church.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

As quoted in "Man må tro at det nytter" http://www.bt.no/nyheter/--Man-ma-tro-at-det-nytter-2633333.html (31 December 2011), by Erik Fossen and Håvard Bjelland, BT (in Norwegian)
2010s

“I have already given you more than you can understand, but not more than you can begin slowly to study and eventually to comprehend…”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: "Discipleship in the New Age, Volume II" (1944), p. 366

“a perpetual stranger
am I to the world
I don't understand its language
my silence it can't comprehend”

Bei Dao (1949) contemporary Chinese (PRC) avant garde poet

"A perpetual stranger...", p. 110
Variant translation:
In the world I am
Always a stranger
I do not understand its language
It does not understand my silence
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“Further, I did not keep in mind, that if the most illiterate persons in the congregation can comprehend the discourse, the most educated will understand it too; but that the reverse does not hold true.”

George Müller (1805–1898) German-English clergyman

A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, First Part.
First Part of Narrative

“St. John said, "And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it, and cannot extinguish it ( I need the double meaning here of comprehend). This is the great cry of affirmation that is heard over and over again in our imaginative literature, in all art.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 3.13 
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: St. John said, "And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it, and cannot extinguish it ( I need the double meaning here of comprehend). This is the great cry of affirmation that is heard over and over again in our imaginative literature, in all art. It is a light to lighten our darkness, to guide us, and we do not need to know, in the realm of provable fact, exactly where it is going to take us.