KIERKEGAARD31

Let us take what is ethically the strictest, the Commandments. If the thief, when you said to him "You must stop stealing", answered "Yes, that's fine for those who have the ability, but I myself don't have it", that, surely, would be a remarkable thing to say. But that is how it always is with the ethical. The ethical demand upon a man to bear witness to the truth is directed not at the intellect but at the will. The demand is not that he be a genius--oh, no! it is quite simple, but it is hard on flesh and blood, so one sees a way out of it by making it sound like aesthetic difference and says unassumingly "I don't have that ability". ["Human Deception", 1850]

Let's simply assume that his melancholy has no content at all. The melancholic can name many cares which have held him in their bond, but the one which binds him now he is unable to name. [1844]

Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

Like a thunderstorm, the genius goes against the wind. [or: Genius, like a thunderstorm, comes up against the wind.] [8 August 1839]

Like someone who got the idea of travelling all over the world to hear a singer with perfect voice, God sits in heaven listening. And every time he hears someone praise him, someone he brings to the extremity of the world-weariness, God says to himself: Here is the voice. ["This Life's Destiny in Christian Eyes", 25 September 1855]

Likewise I will leave behind me, intellectually speaking, a by no means insignificant legacy. And alas, I know who is going to inherit me, that figure to whom I am so deeply opposed, he who up to now has inherited all that is best and will continue doing so--namely the docent, the professor. ["Sadness", 1852]

Little by little, as enlightment and education increase and the requirements increase, a philosopher will naturally find it steadily more difficult to satisfy the demands of the age. In antiquity the demand was for intellectual ability, freedom of mind, passion of thought. But compare the present; people in Copenhagen now demand that a philosopher shall also have stout or at least shapely legs, and dress fashionably. It will become more and more difficult, unless one is happy with the latest requirement on its own and assumes that anyone with stout or at least shapely legs and who dresses in fashion is a philosopher. [1846]

Love for that princess became for him the expression of an eternal love, assumed a religious character, was transfigured into a love for the Eternal Being, which did to be sure deny him the fulfillment of his love, yet reconciled him again by the eternal consciousness of its validity in the form of eternity, which no reality can take from him. [Two Edifying Discourses]

Love is a determination of subjectivity, and yet real lovers are very rare. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

Loving someone because he makes me happy--is egoism. ["Something About Loving"]