Quotes from book
Stages on Life's Way

Name: Stages on Life's Way
Author: Sören Kierkegaard

Sören Kierkegaard

Stages on Life's Way is a philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard written in 1845. The book was written as a continuation of Kierkegaard's masterpiece Either/Or. While Either/Or is about the aesthetic and ethical realms, Stages continues onward to the consideration of the religious realms. Kierkegaard's "concern was to present the various stages of existence in one work if possible." His father Michael Pedersen read Christian Wolff, and Søren himself was influenced by both Wolff and Kant to the point of using the structure and philosophical content of the three special metaphysics as a scheme for this book.

“The immediacy of falling in love recognizes but one immediacy that is ebenburtig (of equal standing), and this is a religious immediacy; falling in love is too virginal to recognize any confidant other than God. But the religious is a new immediacy, has reflection in between-otherwise, paganism would actually be religious and Christianity not. That the religious is a new immediacy every person easily understands who is satisfied with following the honest path of ordinary common sense. And although I imagine I have but few readers, I confess nevertheless that I do imagine my readers to be among these, since I am far from wanting to instruct the admired ones, who make systematic discoveries a la Niels Klim, who have left their good skin in order to put on the “real appearance.””

Sören Kierkegaard book Stages on Life's Way

Stages on Life's Way, p. 161-162
1840s, Stages on Life's Way (1845)

“Take a book, the poorest one written, but read it with the passion that it is the only book you will read-ultimately you will read everything out of it, that is, as much as there was in yourself, and you could never get more out of reading, even if you read the best of books.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Stages on Life's Way

Stages on Life's Way, 1845 p. 363-364
1840s, Stages on Life's Way (1845)

“Any more discursive elaboration of the difference between the sexes or deliberation on which sex is superior is an idle intellectual occupation for loafers and bachelors.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Stages on Life's Way

Stages on Life's Way, 1845 (Hong) p. 124
1840s, Stages on Life's Way (1845)
Context: I was brought up in the Christian religion, and although I can scarcely sanction all the improper attempts to gain the emancipation of woman, all paganlike reminiscences also seem foolish to me. My brief and simple opinion is that woman is certainly as good as man-period. Any more discursive elaboration of the difference between the sexes or deliberation on which sex is superior is an idle intellectual occupation for loafers and bachelors.