KIERKEGAARD36

...now you have perceived that God is not called father according to the earthly designation but that it is the other way around, that it is as scripture says: all fatherliness in heaven and on earth is named after him, the heavenly father, and hte name of the father does not strive upward from earth to heaven but descends from heaven to earth, so that even if you had the best father that could exist on earth he is still only your stepfather, only a reflection of the paternal love after which he is named, only a shadow, a reflection, a picture, a metaphor, a dim expression of the paternal love from which all fatherliness takes its name in heaven and on earth. [1840-41]

Nowadays the furtive sort of aristocracy is practically the only kind left. The aristocrat sneaks his way through the streets, wants to exist for none but his own clique, and then on the odd great occasion appears for the admiring crowd. But this really is to take his distinction in vain. One should exist for all people, not caste-wise and egoistically seek one's advantage. [1846]

Nowadays the more contemptible a writer the better his earnings. [1846]

O Lord Jesus Christ, there is so much to drag us back: empty pursuits, trivial pleasures, unworthy cares. There is so much to frighten us away: a pride too cowardly to submit to being helped, cowardly apprehensiveness which evades danger to its own destruction, anguish for sin which shuns holy cleansing as disease shuns medicine. But Thou art stronger than these, so draw Thou us now more strongly to Thee. [Training in Christianity]

O man, why doth thine eye look only to its own? [Training in Christianity]

Objectively there is no infinite decision, and hence it is objectively in order to annul the difference between good and evil, together with the principle of contradiction, and therewith also the infinite difference between the true and the false. Only in subjectivity is there decision, to seek objectively is to be in error. It is the passion of the infinite that is the decisive factor and not its content, fo its content is precisely itself. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

Of the rightness of my cause, and its importance, I have never doubted--doubted, no, I am as far as possible from that, I have had but one expression: that I could never thank God enough for what is granted me, so infinitely more than I could, or dared, expect. And I have longed for eternity so as to be able unceasingly to thank God. ["My Category", 1850]

Off with all this world history and reasons and proofs of the truth of Christianity: there's just one proof--that of faith. [1849]

Oh, if men would rightly understand what a beautiful use they could make of their imagination, their acuteness, their ingenuity, their ability to co-ordinate by using it in every possible way to discover an extenuating explanation: then would they increasingly taste one of the most beautiful joys in life; it could become to them a passionate pleasure and need, which would cause them to forget everything else. [Works of Love]