Soren Kierkegaard

The true is not the system, but the individual.

Dread is an adventure that every man has to undergo.

The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: Create silence! Bring men to silence. The Word of God cannot be heard in the market-place of life.

The individual is prior to the species.

Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret it; laugh or weep at the world’s follies, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; don’t believe her, you will also regret it; believe or don’t believe a woman, you will regret both. Hang yourself, you will regret it; don’t hang yourself, you will also regret it; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum and substance of all philosophy.

I can sum up in one sentence what directly led to my break with the established order of things: it was the complete and utter lack of seriousness, and that Christianity was being turned into a game.

The present age is an age of reflection, an age of calculation, an age of prudence, an age of prudence in its highest degree.

The highest good for an existing individual is to become an individual.

If I am to love God, I must be able to recognize him; if I am to recognize him, then he must be visible; if he is visible, then he is not God.

The more people are, the less they are themselves.

People are like sheep, they follow the shepherd, and the shepherd is the crowd.

The highest task of a human being is to understand himself.

It is not a question of 'what' but of 'how.'

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

The aesthetic individual is the one who lives in the moment, for the moment, and with the moment.

The ethical individual is the one who chooses himself, and thereby chooses the universal.

The religious individual is the one who lives in fear and trembling before God.

The absolute paradox is that God, the eternal, has entered into time, the temporal, and has become man.

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

The infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so that anyone who has not made this movement has no faith; for only in the infinite resignation does one become conscious of one's eternal validity, and only then can one speak of grasping an eternity.