Søren Kierkegaard

"If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power but for the passionate sense of the potential for the eye which ever young and ardent sees the possible . . . what wine is so sparkling so fragrant so intoxicating as possibility!"

"What our age lacks is not reflection but passion."

"Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards."

"People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have for example freedom of thought instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation."

"The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones."

"Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it."

"Adversity not only draws people together but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship."

"Without risk faith is an impossibility."

"Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth."

"Truth is not introduced into the individual from without but was within him all the time."

"Purity of heart is to will one thing."

"Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning."

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."

"How dreadful boredom is — how dreadfully boring; I know no stronger expression, no truer one, for like is recognized only by like… I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is emptiness, the only thing I live on is emptiness, the only thing I move in is emptiness. I do not even suffer pain… Pain itself has lost its refreshment for me. If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to the other side either to attain or to avoid. I am dying death. And what could divert me? Well, if I managed to see a faithfulness that withstood every ordeal, an enthusiasm that endured everything, a faith that moved mountains; if I were to become aware of an idea that joined the finite and the infinite."

"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."

"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."

"“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”"

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

"With the daguerreotype everyone will be able to have their portrait taken—formerly it was only the prominent—and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same, so we shall only need one portrait."

"Riches and abundance come hypocritically clad in sheep's clothing, pretending to be security against anxieties, and they become then the object of anxiety. They secure a man against anxieties just about as well as the wolf that is put to tending the sheep."