KIERKEGAARD20

I am living now just about like a distilled copy of an original edition of my authentic I. [1938]

I am neither proud nor self-important nor vainglorious--I am a thinker, an immensely passionate thinker. [1848]

I am only a poet. [The Attack Upon "Christendom"]

I am only a poor existing human being, not competent to contemplate the eternal either eternally or divinely or theocentrically, but compelled to content myself with existing. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

I am so fed up and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it--alas, not even the bliss of heaven. [July 1840]

I aspire to be as little as possible; that is precisely my melancholy's idea. For that very reason I have been content to be regarded as half mad, although this was simply a negative form of being something out of the ordinary. [5 November 1846]

I believe that the visible has come into existence from that which is not seen; I see the world, but the invisible I do not see, I believe it. [Works of Love]

I blame no one for anything, they haven't understood me. Even now I cannot let go of the thought which I have had from the very start: whether everyone, after all, doesn't think deep down of God. [1848]

I can abstract from everything but not from myself. I cannot even forget myself when I am asleep. [1836]

I cannot acquire any immediate assurance as to whether I have faith--for having faith is precisely this dialectical floating which is in constant fear and trembling yet never doubts; faith is precisely this infinite self-concern which keeps one awake in one's risking everything, this self-concern also about whether one does indeed have faith--and behold! it is exactly this self-concern that is faith. [1848]

I contemplate nature in the hope of finding God, and I see omnipotence and wisdom; but I also see much else that disturbs my mind and excites anxiety. The sum of all this is an objective uncertainty. But it is for this very reason that the inwardness becomes as intense as it is, for it embraces this objective uncertainty with the entire passion of the infinite. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

I could tell it but ust because I won't tell it but bury it in deep silence I can tell a lot else. [1847]

I do not see that which has been, but that which will be, in the bosom of the sea, in the kiss of the dew, in the mist that spreads over the earth and hides its fertile embrace... Everything finite and temporal is forgotten, only the eternal remains, the power of love, its longing, its happiness. [Either/Or, VOL. I: DIARY OF THE SEDUCER]