Papers and Journals - Soren Kierkegaard

Just finished reading a book from Soren Kierkegaard. He's a Danish author whom work has inspired modern Protestant theology and existentialism. But find some of his articles quite deep...

This book is mainly consist of excerpts from his writing. Some quotes that I like:

*Faith has hopes, therefore, for this life, but note well, on the strength of the absurd, not on the strength of human understanding; otherwise it is only good sense, not faith.

*Longing is the umbilical cord of the higher life.

*Most people tend to have two advisers, one for the moment of danger when they are afraid. The when things are going well they would rather have nothing to do with him, for the sight of him reminds them how weak they were, and now they would like to think that they succeeded through their own strength – not God’s.

*Many think at bottom that the Christian commandments (for instant loving your neighbour as yourself) are purposely made too strict – rather like the clock which rouses a household being put half an hour fast to prevent them getting up much too late in the morning.

*'Consecration' in its first definitive form, the inner condensation of them individual. When an individual begins on some endeavour in the consciousness, or fully realising that, instead of leading to the achievement of a finite goal, it is actually going to prevent him from doing that, he becomes introverted in a redoubling of the self. This is merely human. The religious depends on how far the individual now refers everything to God.

*Christianity does not unite people - no, it separates them - in order to unite every single one with God. And when a person is able to belong to God, he has died away from what unites people.