The Sickness Unto Death

Kierkegaard, Modernity and Despair

Søren Kierkegaard

[T]he torment of despair is precisely this, not to be able to die. So it has much in common with the situation of the moribund when he lies and struggles with death, and cannot die. So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to die — yet not as though there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope…