Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

God does not give a spirit of cowardliness but a spirit of power and of love and of self-control, such as is necessary in order to know what is the good, what is truly great and noble, what significance it has for him and in relation to him; in order to love the good with the unselfish love that desires only to be an unworthy servant, which is always love’s delight, and the opposite of it is a violation that pollutes love for him by making it profitable; and in order to maintain constancy, lest everything become unfruitful without the self-control that tempers the effort and the decision of resolution. This acknowledgment, this assent of resolution, is the first dedication. Alas, how rarely a person experiences this in such a way that even merely in the moment of dedication he renounces all dreams and fancies, every mirage that wants to inflate him and cause him to be amazed at himself, and instead receives the power to envision it as it is, the power to embrace it with self-denying love, the power to make the pact of self-control with it! How rarely a person experiences this in such a way that even merely in the hour of dedication he has the power to hold to the good, which seemingly wants to destroy him, the love not to shrink from it, the self-control not to falsify himself.

Man is a synthesis of psyche and body, but he is also a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal. In the former, the two factors are psyche and body, and spirit is the third, yet in such a way that one can speak of a synthesis only when the spirit is posited. The latter synthesis has only two factors, the temporal and the eternal. Where is the third factor? And if there is no third factor, there really is no synthesis, for a synthesis that is a contradiction cannot be completed as a synthesis without a third factor, because the fact that the synthesis is a contradiction asserts that it is not. What, then, is the temporal?

let the theater keep what belongs to the theater and the juggling heroes: pretentious words, bold gestures, and the applause of an appraising crowd.

Job endured everything — until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.

What is hope? An importunate pest one cannot get rid of, a cunning deceiver who holds out even longer than integrity, a cantankerous friend who always retains his rights even when the emperor has lost his. What is recollection? A troublesome comforter, a cowardly knave who wounds thee from behind, a shadow one cannot get rid of, even if someone would buy it. What is bliss? A wish one gives away to whoever wants to have it! What is friendship? A figment of the imagination, a superfluity, an added plague!

In order to learn true humility (I use this expression to describe the state of mind under discussion), it is good for a person to withdraw from the turmoil of the world (we see that Christ withdrew when the people wanted to proclaim him king as well as when he had to walk the thorny path), for in life either the depressing or the elevating impression is too dominant for a true balance to come about. Here, of course, individuality is very decisive, for just as almost every philosopher believes he has found the truth, just as almost every poet believes he has reached Mount Parnassus, just so we find on the other hand many who link their lives entirely to another, like a parasite to a plant, live in him, die in him (for example, the Frenchman in relation to Napoleon). But in the heart of nature, where a person, free from life's often nauseating air, breathes more freely, here the soul opens willingly to every noble impression. Here one comes out as nature's master, but he also feels that something higher is manifested in nature, something he must bow down before; he feels a need to surrender to this power that rules it all. (I, of course, would rather not speak of those who see nothing higher in nature than substance — people who really regard heaven as a cheese-dish cover and men as maggots who live inside it.) Here he feels himself great and small at one and the same time, and feels it without going so far as the Fichtean remark (in his Die Bestimmung des Menschen) about a grain of sand constituting the world, a statement not far removed from madness.

God in heaven surely knows best what is the highest that a person can aspire to and complete. Scripture only asks if you were a trustworthy servant. p. 148

He who says without pretence that he despairs is, after all, a little nearer, a dialectical step nearer being cured than all those who are not regarded and who do not regard themselves as being in despair.

If he [Job] had never known happiness, then the pain would not have overwhelmed him, for what is pain but an idea that the person knows nothing else does not have, but now it is precisely joy that has educated and developed him to perceive pain.” Then his joy became his own ruin; it was never lost but only lacking, and in its lack it tempted him more than ever before. What had been his eye’s delight, his eyes craved to see again and his ingratitude punished him by inducing him to believe it to be more beautiful than it had ever been. What his soul delighted in, it now thirsted for, and ingratitude punished him by picturing it to him as more delightful than it had ever been. What he once had been able to do, he now wanted to be able to do again, and ingratitude punished him with fantasies that had never had any truth. Then he condemned his soul, living, to be starved out in the insatiable craving of the lack. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong, p. 117

It would indeed also be strange if an insignificant person like me were to succeed in what not even Christianity has succeeded-bringing the speculative thinker into passion. And if that should happen, well, then my fragment of philosophy would suddenly take on a significance of which I had scarcely ever dreamed. But the person who is neither cold nor hot is an abomination and God is no more served by dud individualities than a rifleman is served by a rifle that in the moment of decision clicks instead of firing. If Pilate had not asked objectively what truth is, he would never have let Christ be crucified. If he had asked the question subjectively, then the passion of inwardness regarding what he in truth had to do about the decision facing him would have prevented him from doing an injustice.

A master and way out of the league that the rest of us play in.

The state really does not need to penalize bachelors; life itself punishes the person who deserves to be punished, for the person who does not make a resolution is a poor wretch of whom it must be said in the sad sense: He does not come under judgment. I do not speak this way because I am envious of those who do not will to marry; I am too happy to envy anyone, but I am zealous for life. I return to what I said before, that resolution is a person’s highest ideality. I shall now attempt to develop how the resolution most formative of the individuality must be constituted, and I rejoice in thinking that marriage is precisely so constituted, which, as stated, I assume for the time being to be a synthesis of falling in love and resolution.

Bold confidence is a difficult matter, because it is not exactly synonymous with mental weakness. One may very well stop with it and need not go further by even wishing to judge God, that is, if in other respects bold confidence is bold confidence in the judgment, which certainly requires that God’s judgment penetrate the thought and heart, that is, if it is bold confidence in God’s mercy and these words are not a feigned pious expression of one’s own thoughtlessness, which does not trust God but is consoled by having ceased to sorrow long ago. If no human being is capable of acquitting himself he is capable of one thing-of indicting himself so terribly that he cannot acquit himself but learns to need mercy. With regard to this, it is difficult for one person to understand another, because the earnest person always lays the stress on himself.

It is humble to admit that the struggle, even through no fault of one’s own, drags out so that every day has its evening, and because of one’s fault drags out in such a way that twilight sometimes falls on defeat. It is humble to admit that even the progress through life of the most honest contender is difficult, that even the person who walks his way with firm steps nevertheless does not walk with a hero’s pace, indeed, that when the evening of life cools the contender after the long day there still is no opportunity for fanfare, since even the person who came closest to the goal does not arrive with the qualifications or the disposition for the rigors of a victory celebration but, weary and worn, desires a grave in which to rest and a blessed departure from here in peace.

If I were to say, “I took that crucial step [breaking his engagement to Regine Olsen] because I felt bound, because I had to have my freedom, inasmuch as the lustfulness of my desire embraces a world and cannot be satisfied with one girl,” then the chorus would reply, “That makes sense! Good luck, you enlightened man!” But if I were to say, “She was the only one I have loved; if I had not been sure of that when I left her, I would never have dared to leave her,” then the answer would be, “Away to the loony bin with him!” If I were to say, “I was tired of her,” then the chorus would answer, “Now you’re talking! That is understandable!” But if I were to say, “Then I cannot understand it, for one certainly does not dare to break a relationship of duty because one is tired of it,” then they would say, “He is crazy.” If I were to say (in the words of my most recent interpretation), “I repent of it, I would like to undo it, but I cannot do it-no, I cannot do it, my pride does not permit it-no, I cannot do it”-then the verdict would be, “He is just like everyone else and like the heroes in French poetry.” But were I to declare that nothing, nothing would so satisfy my pride as to dare to undo it, that nothing, nothing would so allay the cold fire of revenge that demands amends, then the response would be: “He is delirious, do not listen to him; away to the loony bin with him.” Mundus vult decipi [The world wants to be deceived]; my relationship to the environment that I must call my world can hardly be more definitely expressed. In fact, I believe that in a wider sense it is the best that can be said about the world. Thus speculators should not cudgel their brains trying to fathom what the times demand, for it has been essentially that same since time immemorial: to be tricked and bamboozled. If one just says something silly and drinks dus with humanity en masse, then one comes to be, like Per Degn, loved and esteemed by the whole congregation. It is not any different now, and anyone who with visible signs of deep concern strikes an attitude of brooding in public over how to find out what it is the times demand has already, when all is said and done, discovered it. In this respect, anyone can serve the age, whether it is to be understood as a whole nation, the human race as a whole, all the future generations, or a little circle of contemporaries. I serve the participants by being a scoundrel. There is no doubt that I satisfy their demand. In fact, I myself also benefit from it and in a certain sense find this outside appraisal really desirable. To be a model of virtue, a bright normative human being, is, for one thing, very embarrassing-and also very dubious. But, on the other hand, I am not being persecuted, either. This, too, is desirable, lest I should draw wrong conclusions and think well of myself because I am persecuted in the world. With regard to people, I have never hesitated to follow my guardian spirit in yielding to a certain elemental modesty about the good and a somewhat gloomy distrust of myself-in other words, to deceive in such a way that I perhaps am always a little better than I seem. I have never been able to understand it in any other way than that every human being is essentially assigned himself and that outside of this either there is an authorization such as an apostle’s, the dialectical nature of which I cannot grasp, although out of respect for what is handed down to me as sacred I refrain from drawing any conclusions from my nonunderstanding-or there is maundering. It is quite true that a person who cannot shave himself can set up shop as a barber and serve others according to their needs, but in the world of the spirit this is meaningless.

Consciousness presupposes itself, and asking about its origin is an idle and just as sophistical a question as that old one, "What came first, the fruit-tree or the stone? Wasn't there a stone out of which came the first fruit-tree? Wasn't there a fruit-tree from which came the first stone? Journals and Papers, Hannay, 1996 1843 IVA49

When David would rightly savor his power and glory, he took a census of the people; in our age, on the other hand, one might say that the people, in order to feel their importance in comparison with a higher power, count themselves.

Accept the invitation so that the inviter may save you from what is so hard and dangerous to be saved from, so that, saved, you may be with him who is the Savior of all, of innocence also. For even if it were possible that utterly pure innocence was to be found somewhere, why should it not also need a Savior who could keep it safe from evil! –The invitation stands at the crossroad, there where the way of sin turns more deeply into sin. Come here, all you who are lost and gone astray, whatever your error and sin, be it to human eyes more excusable and yet perhaps more terrible, or be it to human eyes more terrible and yet perhaps more excusable, be it disclosed here on earth or be it hidden and yet known in heaven-and even if you found forgiveness on earth but no peace within, or found no forgiveness because you did not seek it, or because you sought it in vain: oh, turn around and come here, here is rest! The invitation stands at the crossroad, there where the way of sin turns off for the last time and disappears from view in-perdition. Oh, turn around, turn around, come here; do not shrink from the difficulty of retreat, no matter how hard it is; do not be afraid of the laborious pace of conversion, however toilsomely it leads to salvation, whereas sin leads onward with winged speed, with mounting haste-or leads downward so easily, so indescribably easily, indeed, as easily as when the horse, completely relieved of pulling, cannot, not even with all its strength, stop the wagon, which runs it into the abyss. Do not despair over every relapse, which the God of patience has the patience to forgive and under which a sinner certainly should have the patience to humble himself. No, fear nothing and do not despair; he who says “Come here” is with you on the way; from him there is help and forgiveness on the way of conversion that leads to him, and with him is rest.

An orthodox thunders against the egotism of atheists, “who do not want to enter into God’s kingdom like little children but want to be something.” Here the category is correct, but now he is going to make his discourse weightier and appeals to that Bible passage [Matthew 18:2], literally understood, about being a little child (literally understood). Can one blame the atheist for assuming His Reverence to be a bit lunatic, quite literally understood? The difficult discourse with which the orthodox began has become balderdash, because for a little child it is not at all difficult, and for an adult it is impossible. In a certain sense, to be something and to want to be something is the condition (the negative condition) for entering the kingdom of heaven as a little child-if it is supposed to be difficult-otherwise it is no wonder that one remains outside when one has become forty years old. So, then, the atheist perhaps wants to mock Christianity, and yet there is no one who makes it more ludicrous as the orthodox.

Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.