Søren Kierkegaard

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. . . . My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
-Søren Kierkegaard

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
-Søren Kierkegaard

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
-Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see.
-Søren Kierkegaard

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.
-Søren Kierkegaard

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
-Søren Kierkegaard

If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.
-Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical - for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.
-Søren Kierkegaard

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.
-Søren Kierkegaard

What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?
-Søren Kierkegaard

It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?
-Søren Kierkegaard