Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Søren Kierkegaard The Concept of Anxiety, ch. 3 (1844)
Source checked by an editor
When and why it was written
- When
- Published in 1844 under the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis.
- Why
- Kierkegaard was distinguishing anxiety from fear, which has an object, and needed an image for what anxiety has instead.
What it means
The image is a person at a height who realises they could step off. What produces the vertigo is not the drop but the discovery of their own capacity to choose it.
Kierkegaard's conclusion is that anxiety is the price of freedom rather than a malfunction of it. It appears wherever possibility does.
Read the source
The Concept of Anxiety, 1844
Book links go to Amazon. Affiliate disclosure.
Your turn
What does this bring up for you?
Saved to this device only. Nothing is sent to a server.