The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard

The words of Søren Kierkegaard—“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen, but, if one will, are to be lived”—resound like the voice of a prophet calling us away from shadows into substance. In this saying, the Danish philosopher, often called the father of existentialism, urges us not to confuse second-hand knowledge with the living fire of experience. Stories may inspire us, books may guide us, and visions may awaken desire, but until we embody truth in our own existence, we remain as spectators outside the feast of life.

The ancients understood this. The philosophers of Greece spoke often of eudaimonia, the flourishing of the soul. They declared that wisdom is not merely to be spoken, but to be practiced; virtue is not known until it is lived. Plato may describe justice, Aristotle may define courage, but only the man who acts justly, only the woman who endures courageously, knows the beautiful thing itself. Kierkegaard takes this timeless teaching and sharpens it: the great truths of love, faith, sacrifice, and joy cannot be captured fully in words or symbols. They must become the very blood and breath of our days.

Consider the life of Mother Teresa. Many had heard of charity, had read stories of saints, had seen suffering in the streets. But she did not stop at hearing or reading—she went to Calcutta, took the dying into her arms, and lived love until it shone as a beacon to the world. The books written about her may move the heart, but her own life was the truest book, written not in ink but in deeds of compassion. This is Kierkegaard’s meaning: that the essence of the highest things is revealed only in embodiment.

So too with faith, which Kierkegaard wrestled with his entire life. Faith, he argued, is not a doctrine to be studied or an image to be admired, but a leap to be lived. To trust in God, to walk in uncertainty, to sacrifice one’s own will—this cannot be reduced to words on a page. It must be lived moment by moment. Thus, he insists that the most beautiful things are not things of intellect alone, but things of existence: trust, love, selflessness, truth.

There is also a hidden warning in his words. We live in an age filled with noise—stories, reports, images that wash over us endlessly. Men and women mistake hearing for knowing, reading for becoming, seeing for living. But these are but shadows of the real. To scroll through images of love is not to love. To read of courage is not to be brave. To hear of justice is not to act justly. Kierkegaard reminds us that we must not be content with the surface. We must press on to life itself.

The lesson is clear: do not dwell only in stories of greatness, but dare to live greatly yourself. Let your faith not remain on the page, but guide your steps. Let love not be only a word you admire, but an act you embody. Let justice not be merely an ideal you discuss, but a labor you take upon your shoulders. The highest and most beautiful things are not found in libraries, nor in galleries, nor in songs alone—they are found in the lived reality of those who dare to embrace them.

Therefore, let us take Kierkegaard’s words as a command for our own lives. Let us cease being mere listeners, readers, and spectators, and instead step into the arena of living. Let us live love until it transforms those around us, live courage until it inspires others, live faith until it becomes unshakable. For in the end, life’s true beauty is not in what we have studied, but in what we have dared to embody. And he who lives truth, even in small things, has touched the eternal.