Q0449

Søren Kierkegaard

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
Thinker Søren Kierkegaard
School Existentialism
Source Or
Theme Courage
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Or, within the tradition of 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 courage, 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.). To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0449

MLA: Søren Kierkegaard. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0449.

Chicago: Søren Kierkegaard. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0449.

Same thinker

More from Søren Kierkegaard

  1. Despair is the sickness unto death — the self's refusal to be itself.
  2. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
  3. Marry, and you will regret it; do not marry, and you will also regret it.
  4. Despair is not to will to be oneself — or else to will to be oneself.
  5. The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.

All quotations by Søren Kierkegaard

Same theme

More on courage

  1. It is worse to do injustice than to suffer it.
  2. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
  3. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
  4. Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding!
  5. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Browse the courage theme