Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

Consequently, for us light-minded and unstable human beings there is sheer fear and trembling in this thought of God's changelessness

Oh, to what degree human beings would become—human and lovable beings—if they would become single individuals before God!

Numbers are the most dangerous of all illusions

How then did Abraham exist? He believed. This is the paradox which keeps him upon the sheer edge and which he cannot make clear to any other person, for the paradox is that he as the individual puts himself in an absolute relation to the Absolute.

Remember, one lives only once; if it is neglected, if you do not come to suffer, if you avoid it—it is eternally irreparable

Once you have ventured the decisive act, you are at odds with the life of this world. You come into collision with it, and because of this you will gradually be brought into such tension that you will then be able to become certain of what Christ taught. You will begin to understand that you cannot endure this world without having recourse to Christ. What else can one expect from following the truth?

The truth is: to become a Christian is to become, humanly speaking, unhappy for this life; the proportion is: the more you involve yourself with God and the more he loves you, the more you will become, humanly speaking, unhappy for this life, the more you will come to suffer in this life

Imitation, which corresponds to Christ as prototype, must be advanced, be affirmed, be called to our attention

When you read God's Word, in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: It is I to whom it is speaking, it is I about whom it is speaking—this is earnestness, precisely this is earnestness

It takes a talent to doubt, it requires no talent at all to despair (pp515)

Only in much fear and trembling is a human being able to speak with God, in much fear and trembling

For with his little secret that he cannot divulge, the poet buys this power of the word to tell everybody else's dark secrets. A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil.