KIERKEGAARD59

With this instinctive practical wisdom there is an element of genius in every woman; by a stroke of genius she makes an enormous short-cut compared with the man, who is weighed down by a thousand reflections, and besides by an occasional but stupidly pompous idea of his own dignity in being a man. ["Woman", 1854]

Without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript]

"Woe unto you," says Christ to the "lawyers" (the interpreters of Scripture), "for ye took away the key of knowledge, ye entered not in yourselves [i.e. into the kingdom of heaven, cf. Matthew 23:13], and them that were entering in ye hindred." (Luke 11:52) [Attack Upon "Christendom"]

Would you ask me if there was anything I felt might have gone differently, so that I could have been happier humanly? Oh, foolish question; no, there are some things I feel could have happened differently so that I could have been happier humanly, but that it would have been better, no, no. And with indescribably blissful amazement, I see in retrospect more and more how what happened was the only, the only right thing. ["My Category", 1850]

"Yes, I perceive perfectly that there are two possibilities, one can either do this or that. My sincere opinion and my friendly counsel is as follows: Do it, or don't do it--you will regret both." [Either/Or, VOL. II: EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN THE AESTHETICAL AND THE ETHICAL IN THE COMPOSITION OF PERSONALITY]

Yet all they want--yes, they fight and struggle and wear themselves out--to become something. But this something is, for instance, Counsellor of Chancery or Squadron Surgeon. [1847]

Yet how many girls... in each generation are truly capable of loving? Ninety-nine out of a hundred prefer to love for "reasons". The subtle way in which "reasons" detract instead of grounding or heightening goes undetected--indeed the more reasons she has for her love the less there is of it. [1849]

Yet, I wonder. In the final analysis wasn't that age which required outward expression really more faithful in its assurance than our own, which in the interests of mutual comfort has discovered that assurances are enough? [1847-8]

Yet it stands to reason that God, infinite love, is also majesty; and he is a connoisseur, he can see with frightening acuity whether a person wants to exploit him or is indeed venturing. ["Spirit--Appearance (Phenomenon), The Nearness of God--The Remoteness of God", 1854]

Young man, you who still stand at the beginning of the way, if you have not gone astray, O be converted, turn to God, and taught by him your youth will be strengthened to the work of manhood; you will never experience what he must suffer who, after having wasted the strength and courage of his youth in rebellion against Him, must now, exhausted and powerless, begin a retreat through desolate and devastated provinces surrounded on all sides by the abomination of desolatoin, by burned towns and the delusive expectations of smoking sites, by trampled down prosperity and broken strength, a retreat as slow as a bad year, as long as eternity monotonously broken by the sound of the complaint: these days please me not. [1839]

Your misfortune is that you recognize love simply and solely by these visible signs. [Either/Or, VOL. II: THE AESTHETIC VALIDITY OF MARRIAGE]