- These passages show his true emotions and are a great way to get introduced to his way of thinking and his other works
- "The human race is jubilant and worships itself."
- "For I love really only one idea - that man can become what he really wills"
- "I aspire to be as little as possible."
- Takes pride in the fact that he is the only Danish author that gets people to think independently
- The greater truth always rests with the minority as they are the ones who truly have formed their own opinions
- "When you are not becoming perfected, do not, on your life, dare to prattle about how you really would like so much to become a better man, instead you must at once humbly confess: If I am not perfected it is my own fault."
- "There is nothing everyone is so afraid of as of being told how much he is capable of."
- "It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived - forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take backward-looking position."
- "It is so that the very power of being superior ends in loss of power."
- "Socrates is right: if a man does not do right, it is because he does not understand it; if he understood, he would do what is right - ergo: sin is ignorance."
What I got out of it
- Interesting to note what has influenced Kierkegaard as he has influenced a huge range of philosophers, authors, etc and is one of the first to take a modern, analytical approach to religion and believed that the individual's choice was extremely important
