Quotes from Soren Kierkegaard

to him who has the ring, the spirit of the ring is obedient, whether he be Noureddin or Aladdin, and he who has the world's treasure, has it, however he got it.

Christianity is related to a kingdom which is not of this world — and then the State receives an oath from teachers of Christianity, which oath signifies therefore that the man swears loyalty precisely to that which is the opposite to the State. Such an oath is a self-contradiction, like making a man swear by laying his hand upon the New Testament, where it is written, Thou shalt not swear.

For a Christianity preached by royal functionaries who are paid and made secure by the State and employ the police against other people, such a Christianity has the same relation to the Christianity of the New Testament as swimming with a cork float or with a bladder has to swimming, that is to say, it is play.

For if one makes faith everything, that is, makes it what it is, then, according to my way of thinking, one may speak of it without danger in our age, which hardly extravagates in the matter of faith, and it is only by faith one attains likeness to Abraham, not by murder. If one makes love a transitory mood, a voluptuous emotion in a man, then one only lays pitfalls for the weak when one would talk about the exploits of love.

He fears all worldly setback for there is nothing eternal in him.

Neither can one who wills the Good do so out of fear of punishment. In essence, this is the same thing as willing the Good for the sake of a reward.

repentance and remorse. The one calls us forward.

What matters is to find my purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth that is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die

Mine': what does this word mean? Not what belongs to me, but what I belong to, what contains my whole being, which is mine only so far as I belong to it. My God is not the God that belongs to me, but the God to whom I belong; and so, too, when I say my native land, my home, my calling, my longing, my hope. If there had been no immortality before, this thought that I am yours would be a breach of the normal course of nature." —Johannes the Seducer, from_Either/Or_

I sacrifice myself for my profession, my wife, my children, or, more properly expressed, I do not sacrifice myself for them, but I find in them my satisfaction and joy.

those who possess faith should take care to set up certain criteria so that one might distinguish the paradox from a temptation (Anfechtung).

What is it to be God's elect ? It is to be denied in youth the wishes of youth, so as with great pains to get them fulfilled in old age.