Above is a photo of the statue of Soren Kierkegaard in the garden next to the Royal Library in Copenhagen. Keirkegaard is generally regarded as the first existentialist philosopher. His work while religious has great resonance in his answers to the question: how should I live? Here are some quotations from his writings:... love yourself!
Once you label me you negate me.
Nothing is as heady as the wine of possibility.
The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
He who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.
It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
Love is like a snowmobile racing across the frozen tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At the night the ice weasels come.
To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.
Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see.
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.
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