KIERKEGAARD22

I prefer talking with old women who deal in family twaddle, next with lunatics--and last of all with people who are extremely sensible. [1837]

I really have concerved a certain faith in the reality of romantic love, a sort of reverence for it, accompanied by some feeling of sadness....After all, is it not beautiful to imagine that two beings are meant for one another? How often one has felt the need of reaching out beyond the historical consciousness, a longing, a nostalgia for the primeval forest which lies behind us. And does not this longing acquire a double significance when with it there is associated the conception of another being which also has its home in these regions. [Either/Or, VOL. II: THE AESTHETIC VALIDITY OF MARRIAGE]

I say it is especially the daily press which tends actively to degrade men into specimens. ["Living By Comparison", 1854]

I simply can't stand these pseudo-intellectuals. How often at a party haven't I deliberately put myself beside some elderly spinster who lives on family gossip and with the utmost gravity listened to everything she had to offer. [1836-7]

I think it would be better instead, by frequent note-taking, to let the thoughts emerge with the umbilical cord of the original mood intact and forget as far as possible any concern for their possible use. [13 July 1837]

I think of my early youth, when without clearly comprehending what it is to make a choice I listened with childish trust to the talk of my elders, and the instant of choice was solemn and venerable, although in choosing I was only following the instructions of another person. [Either/Or, VOL. II: EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE AESTHETICAL AND THE ETHICAL IN THE COMPOSITION OF PERSONALITY]

I think that if ever I do become an earnest Christian my deepest shame will be that I did not become one before, that I had to try everything else first. [8 December 1837]

I too have combined the tragic with the comic: I make witticisms, people laugh--I cry. [14 July 1837]

I want--no, I want nothing at all. Amen! [1836-7]

I was so deeply shaken that I understood perfectly well that I could not possibly succeed in striking the comforting and secure via media in which most people pass their lives: I had either to cast myself into perdition and sensuality, or to choose the religious absolutely as the only thing--either the world in a measure that would be dreadful, or the cloister. That it was the second I would and must choose was the bottom already determined: the eccentricity of the first movement was merely the expression for the intensity of the second; it expressed the fact that I had become thoroughly aware how impossible it would be for me to be religious only up to a certain point. [The Point of View]