KIERKEGAARD57

What the Jews and many later have demanded of Christ, that he prove his divinity, is an absurdity. For if he really were God's son the proof would be ludicrous, just as ludicrous as a person wanting to prove his own existence, since in Christ's case existence and divinity are the same--and if he were a deceiver, he must surely have entered well enough into the part to realize that the moment he tried to prove his divinity he would be refuting himself. [19 April 1835]

What thou dost live contemporaneous with is reality--for thee. And thus every man can be contemporary only with the age in which he lives--and then with one thing more: with Christ's life on earth; for Christ's life on earth, sacred history, stands for itself alone outside history. [Training in Christianity]

What unites all human beings is passion. So religious passion, faith, hope and love are everything--the great thing is to live one's life in what is essential for all human beings, and in that to have a difference of degree. Being a philosopher is just about as good a difference as being a poet. [1842-3]

What we need is a Pythagorean silence. There is a far greater need for total-abstaining societies which would not read newspapers than for ones which do not drink alcohol. ["The Daily Press", 1847]

--what wonder that, in despairing hopelessness, I seized upon the intellectual side of man alone, clung to that, so that the thought of my considerable mental talents was my only consolation, ideas my only joy, people of no consequence for me. [1838]

When a man has a toothache the world says, "Poor man"; when a man's wife is unfaithful to him the world says, "Poor man"; when a man is in financial embarrassment the world says, "Poor man"; when it pleased God in the form of a lowly servant to suffer in this world the world says, "Poor man"; when an Apostle with a divine commission has the honor to suffer for the truth the world says, "Poor man."--Poor world! [Attack Upon "Christendom"]

...when one discovers that every street urchin can say "we," one perceives that it means a little more, after all, to be a particular individual. And when one finds that every basement-dweller can play the game of being humanity, one learns at last that being purely and simply a human being is a more significant thing than playing hte society game in this fashion. And one thing more. When a basement-dweller plays this game everyone thinks it ridiculous; and yet it is equally ridiculous for the greatest man in the world to do it. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

When one knows how majorities are come by and how they can fluctuate, then to let this nonsense be what governs!
A tyrant is still just one. Consequently you can arrange to avoid him, if you like, to live far away from him, etc. But where, under a people's government, am I to escape the tyrant? Everyone is in a sense the tyrant! all he needs is to get hold of a mob, a majority. [1848]

When Socrates believed that there was a God, he saw very well that where the way swings off there is also an objective way of approximation, for example, by the contemplation of nature and human history, and so forth. His merit was precisely to shun this way, where the quantitative siren song enchants the mind and deceives the existing individual. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]