Choose to be who you are. . . The individual who would become a person must at some point take over his entire being - must, that is, choose herself.
Soren KierkegaardThere 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.
Soren KierkegaardThe unhappy person is never present to themself because they always live in the past or the future.
Soren KierkegaardWhat I really need is to get clear out about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge precedes every act.
Soren KierkegaardYou should therefore say: alone in one's boat, alone with one's care, alone with one's despair, which one is craven enough to want rather to keep than submit to the pain of being healed.
Soren KierkegaardThe difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.
Soren Kierkegaard