“Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.”
- May 5, 1813 – November 11, 1855
- Danish
- Philosopher, Theologian, Poet, Father of Existentialism
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Quote
“Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.”
Explanation
This quote sharply distinguishes between the genuine thinker and the academic or professional intellectual. For Kierkegaard, a true thinker grapples with paradox—those tensions, contradictions, and mysteries that define human existence. Paradox is essential to authentic thought because it reflects the complexity of life, faith, freedom, and truth. Without paradox, thinking becomes dry, systematic, and lifeless—the domain of the professor, who may master knowledge but lacks existential engagement.
Kierkegaard’s criticism is rooted in his opposition to the Hegelian rationalism and institutional philosophy of his time. He believed that academic systems often aimed to eliminate ambiguity, to make everything explainable and orderly, but in doing so, they missed the profound, lived truths that cannot be reduced to formulas. The thinker, by contrast, lives with the contradictions, embracing them not as flaws but as gateways to deeper understanding and faith.
In the modern world, this quote remains a challenge to intellectual complacency and detachment. Kierkegaard reminds us that real thinking is risky, personal, and transformative—not just the recitation of ideas but the wrestling with life’s unresolvable questions. A professor may teach about existence; the thinker lives its paradoxes. Thus, to think truly is to engage with uncertainty, tension, and the limits of reason—for it is there that wisdom begins.
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