KIERKEGAARD37

Oh, what Christendom has needed for at least 1,500 years is the human frankness to make an honest self-confession, but without changing Christianity one jot--ah, if only that had been done, how differently everything would have looked! ["Augustine's View of Election by Grace", 1854]

Oh, would it were possible for me to flee to a desert isle where never any man had come or would come; oh, that there were a place of refuge whither I could flee far away from myself, that there were a hiding-place where I am so thoroughly hid that not even the consciousness of my sin could find me out, that there were a frnotier line, which were it never so narrow, would yet be a separation between my sin and me, that on the farther side of the yawning abyss there were a spot never so small where I might stand while the consciousness of my sin must remain on the other side, that there were a pardon, a pardon whihc does not make me increasingly sensible of my sin, but truly takes my sin from me and the consciousness of it as well, would that there were oblivion! [Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays]

Once in a while, just after I have gone to bedand am ready to fall asleep, a rooster crows at midnight. It is unbelievable how much that can occupy the imagination. [16 December 1837]

Once in a while there appears a religious enthusiast: he storms against Christendom, he vociferates and makes a loud noise, denoucing almost all as not being Christians--and accomplishes nothing. He takes no heed of the fact that an illusion is not an easy thing to dispel. Supposing now it is a fact that most people, when they call themselves Christians, are under an illusion--how do they defend themselves against an enthusiast? First and foremost, they do not bother about him at all, they do not so much as look at his book, they immediately lay it aside, ad acta; or, if he employs the living word, they go round by another street and do not hear him. As the next step, they spirit him out of the way by carefully defining the whole concept, and settle themselves securely in their illusion; they make him a fanatic, his Christianity an exaggeration--in the end he remains the only one, or one of the few, who is not seriously a Christian (for exaggeration is surely a lack of seriousness), whereas the others are all serious Christians. [The Point of View]

One can also oneself learn from children, from their amazing genius... [1837]

One does not enjoy the immediate, but rather something which he can arbitrarily control. You go to see the middle of a play, you read the third part of a book. By this means you insure yourself a very different kind of enjoyment from that which the author has been so kind as to plan for you. [Either/Or, VOL. I: THE ROTATION METHOD]

...one lives only once, one must have someone who can understand one. How much there is in that; especially when said with absolutely no pretension, it hits home. [Berlin, 10 May 1843]

One must know oneself before knowing anything else. It is only after a man has thus understood himself inwardly and has thus seen his way, that life acquires peace and significance.... [Gilleleie, August 1, 1835]

One thought succeeds another; no sooner have I thought it and am about to write it down than there's a new one--hold it, grasp it--madness--insanity! [December 11, 1836]