Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

Søren Kierkegaard The Concept of Anxiety (1844), p. 61 Verified source · How we source quotes

Where this quote comes from

Kierkegaard wrote this in The Concept of Anxiety (1844). He compares anxiety to the dizziness of someone looking down into an abyss, and notes the cause lies as much in the eye as in the abyss. In the same way, anxiety arises when freedom looks down into its own possibility, just before a leap that he says no science can explain.

Source: The Concept of Anxiety (1844), p. 61

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