KIERKEGAARDattack2

The most fatal thing of all is to staisfy a want which is not yet felt, so that without waiting till the want is present, one anticipates it, likely also uses stimulants to bring about something which is supposed to be a want, and then satisfies it. And this is shocking! And yet this is what they do in the religious sphere, whereby they really are cheating men out of what constitutes the significance of life, and helping people to waste life.

There is only one relation to revealed truth: believing it.
The fact that one believes can be proved in only one way: by being willing to suffer for one's faith. And the degree of one's faith is proved only by the degree of one's willingness to suffer for one's faith...
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The courage of their faith makes an impression upon the human race, leading it to the following conclusion: What is able thus to inspire men to sacrifice everything, to venture life and blood, must be truth.

This saying is so often heard in the world, "One lives only once; therefore I could wish to see Paris before I die, or to make a fortune as soon as possible, or in fine to become something great in the world--for one lives only once."
More rarely we encounter, but it may be encountered nevertheless, a man who has only one wish, quite definitely only one wish. "This," says he, "I could wish; oh, that my wish might be fulfilled, for alas, one lives only once."
Imagine such a man upon his deathbed. The wish was not fulfilled, but his soul clings unalterably to this wish--and now, now it is no longer possible. Then he raises himself on his bed; with the passion of despair he utters once again his wish: "Oh, despair, it is not fulfilled; despair, one lives only once!"
This seems terrible, and in truth it is, but not as he means it; for the terrible thing is not that the wish remained unfulfilled, the terrible thing is the passion with which he clings to it. His life is not wasted because his wish was not fulfilled, by no manner of means; if his life is wasted, it is because he would not give up his wish, would not learn from life anything higher than this consideration of his only wish, as though its fulfillment or non-fulfillment decided everything.

We men are prone by nature to regard life in this way: we consider suffering an evil which in every way we strive to avoid. And if we succeed in this, we think that when our last hour comes we have special reason for thanking God that we have been spared suffering. We think that everything depends upon slipping through this life happily and well--and Christianity thinks that all that is terrible really comes from the other world, that the terrible things of this world are as child's play compared with the terrors of eternity, and that it distinctly does not depend upon slipping through this life happily and well, but upon relation oneself rightly by suffering to eternity.

What an abyss of nonsense and abomination! When something is displeasing to God, does it become well pleasing by the fact that (to make bad worse) a priest takes part who (to make bad worse) gets ten dollars for declaring that it is well pleasing to God?

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!

"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)