KIERKEGAARD33

Most people think, speak, and write in the way they sleep, eat, and drink--with no question ever arising of their relation to the idea. [6 September 1839]

Most people's ideals are the grand, the extraordinary, which they never become. I am far too melancholy to have ideals like that. Others would smile at my ideals. It as indeed my ideal simply to become a husband and make that my whole life. And while I despair of attaining that goal, I become--lo and behold!--an author, and, who knows, maybe a first-rate one at that. [5 November 1846]

Music finds its way where the rays of the sun cannot penetrate. [Either/Or, VOL. I: DIAPSALMATA]

My doubt is terrible.--Nothing can withstand it--it is a cursed hunger and I can swallow up every argument, every consolation and sedative--I rush at 10,000 miles a second through every obstacle. [1841]

My either/or does not in the first instance denote the choice between good and evil, it denotes the choice whereby one chooses good and evil/or excludes them. Here the question is under what determinants one would contemplate the whole of existence and would himself live. [Either/Or, VOL. II: EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE AESTHETICAL AND THE ETHICAL IN THE COMPOSTION OF PERSONALITY]

My grief is my castle, which like an eagle's nest is built high up on the mountain peaks among the clouds; nothing can storm it. From it I fly down into reality to seize my prey; but I do not remain down there, I bring it home with me, and this prey is a picture I weave into the tapestries of my palace. There I live as one dead. [Either/Or, VOL. I: DIAPSALMATA]

My head is as empty and dead as a theatre when the play is over. [1840-42]

My life is absolutely meaningless. When I consider the different periods into which it falls, it seems like the word Schnur in the dictionary, which means in the first place a string, in the second, a daughter-in-law. The only thing lacking is that the word Schnur should mean in the third place a camel, in the fourth, a dust-brush. [Either/Or, VOL. I: DIAPSALMATA]

My need of Christianity is so great (because of both my sufferings and my sins, and my terrible introversion). That is why I am not understood. Many a time I have therefore been afraid of making life far too serious for others too; that is why I am so cautious. [1850]

My own opinion is that our times demand an extremely elegant, neat and glossy book in gilt binding with as little as possible on each page, or, to express myself more succinctly: what our times demand is to be led by the nose. [1843]

My very silence, which kept me in infinity, was my strength--a single word and it would vanish. [1847]

My whole nature is changed. My concealment and reserve [Indesluttethed] are broken--I am free to speak. [April 10, 1848]