Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

You may have heard how someone who had thoughtlessly frittered away his life and never understood anything but wasted the power of his soul in vanities, how he lay on his sick bed and the frightfulness of disease encompassed him and the singularly fearful battle began, how he then for the first time in his life understood something, understood that it was death he struggled with, and how he then pulled himself together in a purpose that was powerful enough to move the world, how he attained marvelous collectedness for wrenching himself out of the sufferings in order to use the last moment to catch up on some of what he had neglected, to bring order to some of the chaos he had caused during a long life, to contrive something for those he would leave behind.

Suppose that Christianity does not at all want to be understood; suppose that, in order to express this and to prevent anyone, misguided, from taking the road of objectivity, it has proclaimed itself to be the paradox. Suppose that it wants to be only for existing persons and essentially for persons existing in inwardness, in the inwardness of faith, which cannot be expressed more definitely than this: it is the absurd, adhered to firmly with the passion of the infinite. Suppose that Christianity does not want to be understood and that the maximum of any eventual understanding is to understand that it cannot be understood. Suppose that it so decisively accentuates existing that the single individual becomes a sinner, Christianity the paradox, and existence the time of decision. Suppose that speculating is a temptation, the most precarious of all. Suppose that the speculator is not the prodigal son but a naughty child who refuses to stay where existing human being belong, in the children’s nursery and the education room of existence where one becomes adult only though inwardness in existing, but who instead wants to enter God’s council, continually screaming that, from the point of view of the eternal, the divine, the theocentric, there is no paradox. Suppose that the speculative thinker is the restless resident who, although it is obvious that he is a renter, yet in view of the abstract truth that, eternally and divinely perceived, all property is in common, wants to be the owner, so that there is nothing to do except to send for a police officer, who would presumably say, just as the subpoena servers say to Gert Westphaler: We are sorry to have to come on this errand.

If faith acquired a probability, then everything would be destroyed and faith would be confused, since this would show that it had not performed the preliminary task and therefore has allowed itself to be confounded with thoughtlessness, which comes most easily to the animal.

If a man possessed a letter which he knew, or believed, contained information bearing upon what he must regard as his life’s happiness, but the writing was pale and fine, almost illegible-then would he read it with restless anxiety and with all possible passion, in one moment getting one meaning, in the next another, depending on his belief that, having made out one word with certainty, he could interpret the rest thereby; but he would never arrive at anything except the same uncertainty with which he began. He would stare more and more anxiously, but the more he stared the less he would see. His eyes would sometimes fill with tears; but the oftener this happened the less he would see. In the course of time, the writing would become fainter and more illegible, until at last the paper itself would crumble away, and nothing would be left to him except the tears in his eyes.

The meaning lies in the appropriation. Hence the book’s joyous giving of itself. Here there are no worldly “mine” and “thine” that separate and prohibit appropriating what is the neighbor’s. Admiration is in part really envy and thus a misunderstanding; and criticism, for all its justification, is in part really opposition and thus a misunderstanding; and recognition in a mirror is only a fleeting acquaintance and thus a misunderstanding-but to see correctly and not want to forget what the mirror is incapable of effecting, that is the appropriation, and the appropriation is the reader’s even greater, is his triumphant giving of himself.

Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term.

There is a truth, the greatness and the grandeur of which we are accustomed to praise by saying admiringly that it is indifferent, equally valid, whether anyone accepts it or not; indifferent to the individual’s particular condition, whether he is young or old, happy or dejected; indifferent to its relation to him, whether it benefits him or harms him, whether it keeps him from something or assists him to it; equally valid whether he totally subscribes to it or coldly and impassively professes it, whether he gives his life for it or uses it for ill gain; indifferent to whether he has found it himself or merely repeats what has been taught. […] There is another kind of truth or, if this is humbler, another kind of truths that could be called concerned truths. They do not live on a lofty plane, for the simple reason that, ashamed, as it were, they are conscious of not applying universally to all occasions but only specifically to particular occasions. They are not indifferent to the single individual’s particular condition, whether he is young or old, happy or dejected, because this determines for them whether they are to be truths for him.

Only the person himself understands that he is guilty. The person who does not understand it this way still misunderstands; and the person who does understand it will find the harsh or gentle or quickly sympathizing explanation, according to what he has deserved. … And you, my listener, you of course know that earnestness is to be alone before the Holy One, whether it is the world’s applause that is shut out or whether it is the world’s accusation that withdraws. Did the woman who was a sinner feel her guilt more deeply when the scribes were accusing her than when there was no accuser anymore and she stood alone before the Lord! But you also realize that the most dangerously deceived person is the one who is self-deceived, that the most dangerous condition is that of the one who is deceived by much knowledge, and, furthermore, that it is a lamentable weakness to have one’s consolation in another’s light-mindedness, but it is also a lamentable weakness to have one’s terror from another’s heavy-mindedness. Leave it solely to God-after all, he knows best how to take care of everything for one who becomes alone by seeking him.

If the speculative thinker explains the paradox in such a way that he cancels it and now consciously knows that it is canceled, that consequently the paradox is not the essential relation of eternal essential truth to an existing person in the extremities of existence, but only an accidental relative relation to limited minds-then there is an essential difference between the speculative thinker and the simple person, whereby all existence is fundamentally confused. God is insulted by obtaining a group of hangers-on, a support staff of good minds, and humankind is vexed because there is not an equal relationship with God for all human beings. The religious formula set forth above for the difference between the simple person’s knowledge and the simple wise person’s knowledge of the simple, that the difference is a meaningless trifle, that the wise person knows that he knows or knows that he does not know what the simple person knows-speculation does not respect the formula at all. Nor does it respect the equality implicit in the difference between the wise person and the simple person-that they know the same thing.

The result of an education by novels and romances can be two-fold. Either the individual sinks deeper and deeper into illusion, or he emerges from it and loses faith in the illusion, but gains a belief in mystification. In the illusion the individual is hidden from himself; in mystification, he is hidden from others, but both cases are results of a romantic training.

imagine a child sitting and drawing with a pencil, drawing whatever occurs to a child, whatever a child recklessly and disconnectedly dashes off; but behind the child stands an invisible artist who guides his hand so that the drawing that is about to become disordered submits to the law of beauty, so that the line that is about to go astray is called back within the boundary of beauty-imagine the child’s amazement! Or imagine that child puts his drawing aside in the evening, but while he sleeps a friendly hand finishes the jumbled and poorly begun sketch-imagine a child’s wonder when he sees his drawing again in the morning! So also with a person; let us never forget that even the more mature person always retains some of the child’s lack of judgment, especially if the prayer is to assist the explanation, not as the essential but as the means.

The same thing that happened to the greatest among those born of women also happens to lesser ones; what happens in the unique decision also happens in the lesser ones, and the words are not profanely used by learning from them to compose oneself in the lesser situation of one’s own life.

The only person I actually manage to learn anything from is a long way from being in my service. Yet we have a secret understanding. He knows everything; he is perhaps the most dependable of all. Fortunately he hates me. If possible, he will torture me-indeed, that I understand. He never says anything directly, never mentions any names, but he tells me such strange stories. At first, I did not understand him at all, but now I know that he is talking about her but using fictitious names. He believes I have sufficient imagination to understand every illusion, and this I do, but I also have enough sense to pass it off as nothing. Yet I must count on his being malevolent.

As do all who suffer from fixed ideas, it has a strong tendency to see espionage and persecution everywhere, and just as rheumatic people feel drafts everywhere, so does it sense pressure everywhere, the misuse of power, and knows how to explain in a satisfying way the feeble signs of life in the public spirit not on the basis that its strength is merely symptomatic and imaginary but on the basis that it is cowed by governments, somewhat as the Busybody explains that he accomplishes nothing during the day, not on the basis that he is fussy and fidgety but on the basis of the many affairs that burst in on him. ** Stages on Life's Way, Hong p. 466 (1845)

all who are expecting do have one thing in common, that they are expecting something in the future, because expectancy and the future are inseparable ideas. The person who is expecting something is occupied with the future. p. 16

Of all ridiculous things, it seems to me the most ridiculous is to be a busy man of affairs, prompt to meals, and prompt to work. Hence when I see a fly settle down in a crucial moment on the nose of a business man, or see him bespattered by a carriage which passes by him in even greater haste, or a drawbridge opens before him, or a tile from the roof falls down and strikes him dead, then I laugh heartily. And who could help laughing? What do they accomplish, these hustlers? Are they not like the housewife, when her house was on fire, who in her excitement saved the fire-tongs? What more do they save from the great fire of life?

Some years ago at a specific hour of the day, a tall, slender man could be seen walking with measured steps back and forth on the flagstones in the southern section of Overgaden over Vandet. Hardly anyone failed to notice the peculiarity in his walks, for the distance he covered was so short that even the uninitiated were bound to become aware of him, that he did not enter shops and that he was not, like others, out for a stroll either. Anyone who observed him frequently could see in his gait an image of the force of habit. … He was, of course, well known in the whole neighborhood, but even though he was mentally disordered, he was never exposed to any insult; on the contrary, the neighbors treated him with a certain respect. Conducive to this were his wealth and also his charitableness and his attractive appearance. It is true that his countenance had the impassive expression characteristic of a certain kind of mental disorder, but his features were handsome, his figure erect and well formed, his attire very meticulous, even elegant. Moreover, his mental disorder manifested itself most clearly only in the forenoon between eleven and twelve o’clock, when he paced the flagstones between Bornehaus [Orphanage] Bridge and the south end of the street. The rest of the day he presumably spent trailing after his unhappy concern, but it did not express itself in this way. he spoke with people, went on longer strolls, involved himself in many things, but between eleven and twelve o’clock no one for all the world could stop him from walking, make him walk farther, answer any questions, or even respond to a greeting-he who otherwise was courtesy itself. … The conduct of the nearby residents toward him was almost reminiscent of the conduct of the Indians toward a mentally disordered person, whom they venerated as a wise man, in private they possibly had many conjectures as to the cause of his misfortune. It happens not infrequently that by this kind of conjecturing the so-called sagacious people betray just as much disposition to lunacy or perhaps more foolishness than anyone mentally disordered. The so-called sagacious people are often so stupid as to believe everything a lunatic says, and not infrequently stupid enough to believe that everything he says is lunacy, although many a time no one is more cunning at hiding what he wants to hide than a mentally disordered person, and although many a word from him contains a wisdom of which the wisest need not be ashamed. This no doubt explains how the same view that thinks that in the governance of existence a grain of sand or an accident determines the outcome can hold also in psychology, for it is the same view if one sees no deeper cause for insanity but regards insanity as easily explained by nothing, just as mediocre actors believe that acting the role of an intoxicated person is the easiest of tasks, which is true only if one is sure of having a mediocre audience to see the acting.

The self that is the objective is not only a personal self but a social, a civic self. He then possesses himself as a task in an activity whereby he engages in the affairs of life as this specific personality. Here his task is not to form himself but to act, and yet he forms himself at the same time, because, as I noted above, the ethical individual lives in such a way that he is continually transferring himself from one stage to another.

For whoever has what he has from the God himself clearly has it at first hand; and he who does not have it from the God himself is not a disciple. Let us assume that it is otherwise, that the contemporary generation of disciples had received the condition from the God, and that the subsequent generations were to receive it from these contemporaries -- what would follow?

The art in all communication is to come as close as possible to actuality, to contemporaries in the role of readers, and yet at the same time to have the distance of a point of view, the reassuring, infinite distance of ideality from them. Papers VII B 325