Søren Kierkegaard — Quote from The Concept of Anxiety
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
The Concept of Anxiety (1844)
Concepts: absurd, freedom, authenticity
Resonant Quotes
- “The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Ev...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Kierkegaard's anxiety as the dizziness of freedom and Camus's absurd that binds rather than liberates both locate the...
- “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is respon...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness Kierkegaard's anxiety and Sartre's condemnation both capture the vertiginous experience of confronting the groundless...
- “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Kierkegaard's anxiety perfectly captures the psychological experience of Dostoevsky's theological insight—both identi...
- “Anxiety is not something we have but something we are. It is our state of bei...” — Rollo May, The Meaning of Anxiety May's existential expansion of Kierkegaard's metaphor transforms anxiety from a psychological state into an ontologic...
- “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your lonelies...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Nietzsche's eternal recurrence as the ultimate test of affirmation and Kierkegaard's anxiety as the dizziness of free...
- “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Ju...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Kierkegaard's anxiety as the vertigo of confronting infinite possibility provides the experiential foundation for the...
- “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the ver...” — Erich Fromm, Man for Himself Kierkegaard's identification of anxiety as freedom's vertigo captures the same phenomenological insight as Fromm—that...
- “We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness Sartre's paradox of unknowing responsibility directly explicates why freedom produces Kierkegaard's dizzying anxiety ...