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Kierkegaard on how “if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right”

ByLucy Fuggle Last updated on
Photo by Andreas Dress
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Unfinished sketch of Kierkegaard by his cousin Niels Christian Kierkegaard, c. 1840
I finished my undergraduate degree last month, and since then I’ve spent a few weeks travelling. One of the stops was Copenhagen, where I decided to make Søren Kierkegaard a focal point of my wanderings: the Danish philosopher and father of existentialism whose work included Either/Or and Fear and Trembling.
 
The philosopher was born in the city, studied at its university, and died there, and I found it fascinating to wander its roads with his life and work in mind. This is particularly fitting upon considering one of Kierkegaard’s most famous quotes:
 

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

― Søren Kierkegaard, from a letter to his favourite niece, Henriette Lund, in 1847

If you find yourself in Copenhagen, try to meander around the Frederiksberg Gardens — “that wonderful garden which for the child was the enchanted land where the king lived with the queen,” as Kierkegaard wrote in “Concluding Unscientific Postscript.”You can also contemplate his grave in Assistens Cemetery, see a 1918 bronze statue of him in the Royal Library Garden, and stroll along the “Lovers’ Lane” near Peblinge Lake which is the opening setting for The Seducer’s Diary.

But if you’re not in Copenhagen, perhaps try to wander a little regardless. Walk, with or without direction, and walk yourself into your best thoughts as the Danish philosopher did.
 
 

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