"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself"
About this Quote
Kierkegaard turns fear into a diagnostic tool. The line is built on a neat asymmetry: daring costs you balance; refusing to dare costs you a self. He chooses "footing" carefully - a bodily, immediate image of wobble and vertigo - to make risk feel temporary, survivable, almost athletic. Then he drops the deeper charge: the real catastrophe is spiritual, slow, and self-inflicted. The punch is that safety is not neutral. It is an action with consequences.
The subtext is Kierkegaard's lifelong argument with the respectable, well-adjusted life. In 19th-century Copenhagen, bourgeois stability was often treated as moral proof: good citizens don't rock the boat, and faith is something you inherit like property. Kierkegaard, writing against the era's comfortable Christianity and the period's rising confidence in systems (philosophical and social), insists that becoming a person isn't automatic. It requires choosing, risking, committing - what he famously frames as a leap. "Momentarily" matters: anxiety and uncertainty are part of the passage, not evidence you've chosen wrong.
The intent is not motivational-poster bravado; it's a critique of avoidance as a way of life. Kierkegaard is naming how people outsource their identities to roles, institutions, and consensus, then call it peace. Daring, here, isn't thrill-seeking. It's taking responsibility for your existence - the kind of choice that can make you lonely, misunderstood, and briefly unsteady, but finally real.
The subtext is Kierkegaard's lifelong argument with the respectable, well-adjusted life. In 19th-century Copenhagen, bourgeois stability was often treated as moral proof: good citizens don't rock the boat, and faith is something you inherit like property. Kierkegaard, writing against the era's comfortable Christianity and the period's rising confidence in systems (philosophical and social), insists that becoming a person isn't automatic. It requires choosing, risking, committing - what he famously frames as a leap. "Momentarily" matters: anxiety and uncertainty are part of the passage, not evidence you've chosen wrong.
The intent is not motivational-poster bravado; it's a critique of avoidance as a way of life. Kierkegaard is naming how people outsource their identities to roles, institutions, and consensus, then call it peace. Daring, here, isn't thrill-seeking. It's taking responsibility for your existence - the kind of choice that can make you lonely, misunderstood, and briefly unsteady, but finally real.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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