It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.
Soren Kierkegaard

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.
Soren Kierkegaard

Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.
Soren Kierkegaard

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kierkegaard

Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
Soren Kierkegaard

Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward.
Soren Kierkegaard

Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.
Soren Kierkegaard

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
Soren Kierkegaard

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
Soren Kierkegaard

Marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition, and traditions and customs are like the wind and weather, altogether incalculable.
Soren Kierkegaard

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
Soren Kierkegaard

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.
Soren Kierkegaard

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.
Soren Kierkegaard

Once you label me you negate me.
Soren Kierkegaard

One can advise comfortably from a safe port.
Soren Kierkegaard

Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
Soren Kierkegaard

Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.
Soren Kierkegaard

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.
Soren Kierkegaard

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard

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