KIERKEGAARD39

Philosophy has answered every question; but no adequate consideration has been given the question concerning what sphere it is within which each question find its answer. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

Place a child in a den of thieves, but the child must not remain there so long that it becomes itself perverted, hence let it remain there only a very short time; then let it come home and tell of all its experiences: you will see that the child, who (like every child) is a good observer and has an excellent memory, will tell everything with the utmost detail, yet in such a way that in a sense the most important things are omitted, so that one who did not know that the child had been among bandits would least suspect it from the child's narrative. What is it then which the child omits? What is it that the child did not discover? It is the evil. And yet the child's description of what it saw and heard is absolutely accurate. What is it then the child lacks? What is it that so frequently makes a child's narration the most profound mockery of its elders? It is the sense of evil, and that the child lacks the sense of evil, so that the child finds no pleasure in wishing to understand it. [Works of Love]

PRAYER: From Thy hand, O Lord, do we receive everything! Thou stretchest out Thy powerful hand and takest the wise in their foolishness. Thou openest it, Thy gentle hand, and satisfiest whatever lives with blessing. And even if it seems that Thine arm is shortened, then do Thou increase our faith and our confidence, so that we may hold Thee fast. And if it sometimes seems that Thou dost withdraw Thine hand from us, oh, then we know that it is only so because Thou dost close it, that Thou dost close it only in order to conceal the more abundant blessing within it, that Thou dost close it in order again to open it and satisfy everything which lives with Thy blessing. Amen. [Two Edifying Discourses]

Punishment is not the pain in itself; the same pain or suffering can indeed happen to another as a mere accident. Punishment is the idea that this particular suffering is punishment. When this idea is removed, so, too, really, is the punishment. ["Forgiveness of Sins", 1850]

Quite simply: I want honesty...
I am neither leniency nor severity: I am--a human honesty. [The Attack Upon "Christendom", March 1855]

Rather than the wide circulation my writing might enjoy through being published in the BT, I'd much rather have just one single reader. [1846]

...really it is the conviction that sustains the reasons and not the converse. [1849]

Regine Olsen. I first saw here at the Rodams'. That's where I saw her in the time before I visited the family...
Even before my father died my mind was made up about her. He died, I studied for examination. During all that time I let her life become entwined with mine...
On 8 September I left home with the firm intention of settling the whole thing. We met on the street just outside their house. She said there was no one at home. I was rash enough to take this as the invitation I needed. I went in with her. There we stood, the two of us alone in the living-room. She was a little flustered. I asked her to play something for me as she usually did. She does so but I don't manage to say anything. Then I suddenly grab the score, close it not without a certain vehemence, throw it on to the piano and say: Oh! What do I care for music, it's you I want, I have wanted you for two years. [1849]