Soren Kierkegaard

A 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.

Be that self which one truly is.

Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.

Don't forget to love yourself.

During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.

Father in Heaven! When the thought of thee wakes in our hearts let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.

I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.

If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

It requires moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to rejoice.

It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.

Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.

Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward.

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.

Not 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 wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.

Once you label me you negate me.

One can advise comfortably from a safe port.

Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.

Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.

Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

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.

The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the more he can remember the more divine his life becomes.

The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.

The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed.

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion -- and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion... while truth again reverts to a new minority.

When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, Where is the director? I want to see him.