"To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet"
About this Quote
Ambition looks absurd when the job is to chase what refuses to sit still. Jaspers’s line punctures the modern fantasy that you can pick “philosopher” the way you pick “accountant”: a clean career choice with a clear ladder and measurable outputs. By pairing philosophy with poetry, he demotes both from professions to callings - not in the romantic, inspirational-poster sense, but in the stricter sense that the work has to happen to you before you can claim it.
The sting is in “decide.” A decision implies control, planning, and a predictable identity. Jaspers, trained as a psychologist and shaped by early 20th-century Europe’s intellectual upheavals, understood how little control we have over the questions that actually reorganize a life: mortality, guilt, freedom, meaning. Those are not electives. They’re what he later called “limit situations,” experiences that corner you into reflection whether you like it or not. In that frame, announcing “I will be a philosopher” sounds like declaring you will manufacture an existential crisis on schedule.
The comparison to poetry sharpens the critique. Poetry is associated with voice, intuition, and an inability to fully explain how the lines arrive. Jaspers smuggles philosophy into that same territory: rigorous, yes, but ultimately rooted in responsiveness to reality’s pressure, not in credentialed intention. The subtext is also a jab at academic self-importance. If philosophy becomes a title first and an encounter second, it risks turning into performance - a posture of wisdom rather than the messy, involuntary work of thinking.
The sting is in “decide.” A decision implies control, planning, and a predictable identity. Jaspers, trained as a psychologist and shaped by early 20th-century Europe’s intellectual upheavals, understood how little control we have over the questions that actually reorganize a life: mortality, guilt, freedom, meaning. Those are not electives. They’re what he later called “limit situations,” experiences that corner you into reflection whether you like it or not. In that frame, announcing “I will be a philosopher” sounds like declaring you will manufacture an existential crisis on schedule.
The comparison to poetry sharpens the critique. Poetry is associated with voice, intuition, and an inability to fully explain how the lines arrive. Jaspers smuggles philosophy into that same territory: rigorous, yes, but ultimately rooted in responsiveness to reality’s pressure, not in credentialed intention. The subtext is also a jab at academic self-importance. If philosophy becomes a title first and an encounter second, it risks turning into performance - a posture of wisdom rather than the messy, involuntary work of thinking.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: On My Philosophy (Karl Jaspers, 1941)
Evidence: My path was not the normal one of professors of philosophy. I did not intend to become a doctor of philosophy by studying philosophy (I am in fact a doctor of medicine) nor did I by any means, intend originally to qualify for a professorship by a dissertation on philosophy. To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. (Chapter I ("The Course of my Development")). This wording appears as the opening of Karl Jaspers' piece commonly titled "On My Philosophy" (dated 1941). The quote circulates widely in this exact form and is reproduced (with context) by Wikiquote and other secondary sites; however, those secondary sites generally state that the English text is 'as published in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre (1956), ed. Walter Kaufmann'. That suggests the English translation may have first appeared (in English) in Kaufmann's 1956 anthology, while the underlying primary source is Jaspers' own 1941 text. I was able to verify the exact sentence in the online text, but I could not, from accessible scans in this search session, verify the precise page number in the 1956 Kaufmann volume or in the original 1941 German publication/edition history. So: primary source identified; earliest English print appearance likely 1956; exact 'first publication' details of the 1941 original still need confirmation from a bibliographic record or scan of the 1941 German source. Other candidates (1) Existentialism From Dostoevsky To Sartre (Walter Kaufmann, 2016) compilation95.0% ... Karl Jaspers, the former sheriff and later bank director, and his wife Henriette, née Tantzen. I passed a well-gu... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jaspers, Karl. (2026, February 19). To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-decide-to-become-a-philosopher-seemed-as-165308/
Chicago Style
Jaspers, Karl. "To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet." FixQuotes. February 19, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-decide-to-become-a-philosopher-seemed-as-165308/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet." FixQuotes, 19 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-decide-to-become-a-philosopher-seemed-as-165308/. Accessed 29 Mar. 2026.
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