Soren Kierkegaard

"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."

"Once you label me you negate me."

"Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor."

"Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are."

"The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you."

"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."

"Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences."

"Don't forget to love yourself."

"Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further."

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

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

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

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

"Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all."

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

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

"Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts."

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

"The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived."

"There 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."

"What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music."