01UndatedA person who speaks like a book is exceedingly boring to listen to; sometimes, however, it is not inappropriate to talk in that way. For a book has the remarkable property that it can be interpreted any way you wish. If one talks like a book one’s conversation acquires this property too. I kept quite soberly to the usual formulas. She was surprised, as I’d expected; that can’t be denied. To describe to myself how she looked is difficult. She seemed multifaceted; yes just about like the still to be published but announced commentary to my book, a commentary capable of any interpretation. One word and she would have laughed at me; another and she would have been moved; still another and she would have shunned me; but no such word came to my lips. I remained solemnly unemotional and kept to the ritual.― ‘She had known me for such a short time’, dear God, it’s only on the strait path of engagement one meets such difficulties, not the primrose path of love.”―from_Either/Or: A Fragment of Life_. Abridged, Translated and with an Introduction and Notes by Alastair Hannay, p. 312Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
02UndatedMost people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
04UndatedTruth is not introduced into the individual from without but was within him all the time.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
07UndatedAdversity not only draws people together but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
08UndatedMost men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
10UndatedPeople hardly ever make use of the freedom they have for example freedom of thought instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
11UndatedLife can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
13UndatedIf I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power but for the passionate sense of the potential for the eye which ever young and ardent sees the possible . . . what wine is so sparkling so fragrant so intoxicating as possibility!Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
15UndatedTo stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going down on one's knees and thanking him.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
16UndatedTeach me O God not to torture myself not to make a martyr out of myself through stifling reflection but rather teach me to breathe deeply in faith.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
17UndatedLife can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forward.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
19UndatedPatience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
20UndatedBecause of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
21UndatedWhat is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
22UndatedNot just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
23UndatedA man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
24UndatedIf I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.Soren Kierkegaard / quote ↗
