Soren Kierkegaard

“Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.”

“Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.”

“How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.”

“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.”

“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

“Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.”

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

“Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.”

“Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.”

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

“It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.”

“Don't forget to love yourself.”

“There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.”

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.”

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

“If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.”

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”

“Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.”

“Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.”