Q0075

Søren Kierkegaard

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Despair is the sickness unto death — the self's refusal to be itself.
Thinker Søren Kierkegaard
School Proto-Existentialism
Source The Sickness unto Death
Theme Self
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with The Sickness unto Death, within the tradition of Proto-Existentialism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of self, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Søren Kierkegaard's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Søren Kierkegaard. (n.d.). Despair is the sickness unto death — the self's refusal to be itself. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0075

MLA: Søren Kierkegaard. “Despair is the sickness unto death — the….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0075.

Chicago: Søren Kierkegaard. “Despair is the sickness unto death — the….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0075.

Same thinker

More from Søren Kierkegaard

  1. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
  2. Marry, and you will regret it; do not marry, and you will also regret it.
  3. Despair is not to will to be oneself — or else to will to be oneself.
  4. The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.
  5. It is quite true what philosophy says, that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards.

All quotations by Søren Kierkegaard

Same theme

More on self

  1. A friend is another self.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. I searched for myself.
  4. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
  5. Claim yourself for yourself.

Browse the self theme