The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself.

Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally and happily secured against despair.

How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that God exists unless one has already allowed Himself to ignore Him? A king's existence is demonstrated by way of subjection and submissiveness. Do you want to try and demonstrate that the king exists? Will you do so by offering a string of proofs, a series of arguments? No. If you are serious, you will demonstrate the king's existence by your submission, by the way you live. And so it is with demonstrating God's existence. It is accomplished not by proofs but by worship. Any other way is but a thinker's pious bungling.

What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?

The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself.

Intelligence has got the upper hand to such an extent that it transforms the real task into an unreal trick and reality into a play.

...a human being not only can choose but... he must choose... for in this way God retains His honor while at the same time has a fatherly concern for humankind. Though God has lowered Himself to being that which can be chosen, yet each person must on his part choose. God is not mocked. Therefore the matter stands thus: If a person avoids choosing, this is the same as the presumption of choosing the world.