Quotation
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“Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it.”
Søren Kierkegaard · Existentialism (forerunner) · Modern · 1843
What does it mean?
Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. The diapsalm stacks the same joke on laughing, trusting, and hanging oneself. It is the aesthete's voice in Either/Or, a refusal to let any choice deliver him from regret. A rival reading takes it as Kierkegaard's advice against marriage, which ignores the pseudonym and ignores Either/Or II, where Judge William answers with a defence of choosing. Another reading thinks the joke is mere cynicism.
Did Søren Kierkegaard really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Hong and Hong. The diapsalm continues: laugh or do not laugh, trust or do not trust, hang yourself or do not, you will regret both. The voice is the aesthete's, not a signed doctrine that marriage is a mistake.
Where it comes from
Either/Or I, Diapsalmata, in the Hong and Hong translation
Approximate date: 1843.
How to use it
Someone in a flat in Manchester keeps a relationship, and a job, in permanent draft, because either ending will be regrettable. The diapsalm describes that suspension. It does not recommend it. Judge William, in the second volume, thinks the suspension is the aesthetic life failing to become a self. You can prefer the joke. You should know which voice you are preferring.
A mindset reading
Either/Or is two voices on purpose. Quoting the diapsalm as the author's conclusion is how a literary device became a meme. The meme is funny. The book is a confrontation between the funny and the ethical.
Understand the philosophy
Hong and Hong are the translators named for Kierkegaard in this library. The diapsalmata are the opening of the aesthete's papers. They are not The Sickness unto Death, and they are not a sermon he signed.
- self
- love
- meaning
FAQ
What does it mean?
Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. The diapsalm stacks the same joke on laughing, trusting, and hanging oneself. It is the aesthete's voice in Either/Or, a refusal to let any choice deliver him from regret. A rival reading takes it as Kierkegaard's advice against marriage, which ignores the pseudonym and ignores Either/Or II, where Judge William answers with a defence of choosing. Another reading thinks the joke is mere cynicism.
Did Søren Kierkegaard really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Hong and Hong. The diapsalm continues: laugh or do not laugh, trust or do not trust, hang yourself or do not, you will regret both. The voice is the aesthete's, not a signed doctrine that marriage is a mistake.
Which work is it in?
Either/Or I, Diapsalmata, in the Hong and Hong translation Approximate date: 1843.