KIERKEGAARD27

Is there then no poet, although there is a poem? This would surely be strange, as strange as flute-playing without a flute-player. Or is this poem perhaps like a proverb, for which no author can be assigned, because it is as if it owed its existence to humanity at large; was this perhaps the reason you called my theft the most wretched, because I did not steal from any individual man but robbed the human race, and arrogantly, although I am only an individual man, aye even a wretched thief, pretended to be mankind?
...
So then perhaps it is no poem or at any rate not one for which any human being is responsible, nor yet mankind; ah, now I understand you, it was for this reason you called my procedure the most wretched act of plagiarism, because I did not steal from any individual, nor from the race, but from God; or as it were stole God away, and though I am only an individual man, aye even a wretched thief, blasphemously pretended to be God. [Philosophical Fragments]

Is your will unconditionally His will, your wishes, each one of them, His commandments, your thoughts, first and last, His thoughts? ["The Unchangeableness of God"]

It becomes clear rather than the only way in which an existing individual comes into relation with God is when the dialectical contradiction brings his passion to the point of despair, and helps him to embrace God with the "category of despair" (faith). Then the postulate is so far from being arbitrary that it is precisely a life-necessity. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

It has often struck me when reading a good poem or other work of genius that it was a good thing after all that I myself was not its author, for then I would not be allowed to vent my joy without fear of being accused of vanity. [January 1836]

It is a misunderstanding to be concerned about reality from the aesthetic or intellectual point of view. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

It is a positive starting point for philosophy when Aristotle says that philosophy begins with wonder, not as in our day with doubt. More-over the world will learn that the thing is not to begin with the negative, and the reason why it has succeeded up to the present is that it has never really given itself over to the negative, and so has never seriously done what is said. Its doubt is mere child's play. [1841]

It is indeed infinite that he bothers about a sparrow, but to let himself be born and die for the sake of sinners (and a sinner is even less than a sparrow) - O, infinite love! [1848]

It is like a man's coming into existence: by existing, by becoming a "self," he becomes free, but in the next moment he is dependent on this self. Duty, on the other hand, makes a man dependent and at the same time eternally independent... Alas, we often think that freedom exists, and that is the law which restricts freedom. However, it is just the other way: without law freedom simply does not exist, and it is the law which gives freedom. [Works of Love]