Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

Only the lower natures forget themselves and become something new. Thus the butterfly has entirely forgotten that it was a caterpillar, perhaps it may in turn so entirely forget it was a butterfly that is becomes a fish.

Ulysses was not comely, but he was eloquent, Yet he fired two goddesses of the sea with love

Prayer is listening.

But one must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow.

The genius differs from us men in being able to endure isolation, his rank as a genius is proportionate to his strength for enduring isolation, whereas we men are constantly in need of the others, the herd; we die, or despair, if we are not reassured by being in the herd, of the same opinion as the herd.

The misfortune of our time is just this, that it has become simply nothing else but 'time', the temporal, which is impatient of hearing anything about eternity.

The less support an idea has,the more fervently it must be believed in, so that a totally preposterous idea requires unflinching faith.

Even though it be true that the conception of God is absolute help, it is also the only help which is absolutely capable of revealing to man his own helplessness.

All men have a natural fear of making a mistake--by believing too well of a person. However, the error of believing too ill of a person is perhaps not feared, at least not in the same degree as the other.

Spiritually, a man's thoughts must be the building in which he lives, otherwise it's wrong.

If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.

Man is the synthesis of the infinite and the finite, the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self.

Que otros se lamenten de que los tiempos son malos; yo me quejo de su mediocridad, puesto que ya no se tienen pasiones. ...Por eso mi alma se vuelve siempre al Viejo Testamento y a Shakespeare. Aquí se siente en todo caso la impresión de que son hombres los que hablan, aquí se odia y se ama de veras, se mata al enemigo, y se maldice a su descendencia por todas las generaciones; aquí se peca.

Durven is even de grond onder je voeten verliezen. Niet durven is je leven verliezen.

A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either.

if god loves me, he is my mortal enemy

It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer.

He follows his heart's desire, but having found what he sought he wanders round to everyone's door with his song and speech, so that all can admire the hero as he does, be proud of the hero as he is.

You should therefore say: alone in one's boat, alone with one's care, alone with one's despair, which one is craven enough to want rather to keep than submit to the pain of being healed.

Satan's despair is absolute because Satan, as pure spirit, is pure consciousness, and for Satan (and all men in his predicament) every increase in consciousness is an increase in despair.

When the child must be weaned, the mother too is not without sorrow at the thought that she and the child are separated more and more, that the child which first lay under her heart and later reposed upon her breast will be so near to her no more.

In relation to the labyrinth of her heart, every young girl is an Ariadne; she owns the thread by which one can find one's way through it, but she owns it without herself knowing how to use it.

Riches and abundance come hypocritically clad in sheep's clothing, pretending to be security against anxieties, and they become then the object of anxiety. They secure a man against anxieties just about as well as the wolf that is put to tending the sheep.

The girl made an impression on me, and I forgot her; the other made no impression, and her I can remember.