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Quotes by Danish Authors
"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."
"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."
"Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own."
"With the daguerreotype everyone will be able to have their portrait taken-formerly it was only the prominent-and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same, so we shall only need one portrait."
"Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living."
"Truth is not introduced into the individual from without but was within him all the time."
"The interparliamentary conference should, in my opinion, direct its particular attention to the preparation of the next Hague Conference, the diplomatic conference, the conference of governments."
"Riches and abundance come hypocritically clad in sheep's clothing, pretending to be security against anxieties, and they become then the object of anxiety. They secure a man against anxieties just about as well as the wolf that is put to tending the sheep."
"Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg."
"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."
"And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not."
"Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts."
"It is comic that a mentally disordered man picks up any piece of granite and carries it around because he thinks it is money, and in the same way it is comic that Don Juan has 1,003 mistresses, for the number simply indicates that they have no value. Therefore, one should stay within one's means in the use of the word "love"."
"What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement."
"To have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God."
"Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."
"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."
"Marry, and you will regret it; don't marry, you will also regret it; marry or don't marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world's foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world's foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it. Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don't hang yourself, you'll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy."
"Satan's despair is absolute because Satan, as pure spirit, is pure consciousness, and for Satan (and all men in his predicament) every increase in consciousness is an increase in despair."
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
"The more he needs God, the more deeply he comprehends he is in need of God, and then the more he in his need presses forward to God, the more perfect he is... To need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself."
"To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision."
"The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires."
"Without risk faith is an impossibility."
"Hope is a passion for the possible."
"If this had not been the case with Abraham, then perhaps he might have loved God but notbelieved; for he who loves God without faith reflects upon himself, he who loves God believingly reflects upon God."
"In relationship to God one can not involve himself to a certain degree. God is precisely the contradiction to all that is 'to a certain degree'."
"Every individual, however original he may be, is still a child of God, of his age, of his nation, of his family and friends. Only thus is he truly himself. If in all this relativity he tries to be the absolute, then he becomes ridiculous."
"Once you are born in this world you're old enough to die."
"Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!"
"Hence it is a superficial view (which presumably has never seen a person in despair, not even one's own self) when it is said of a man in despair, "He is consuming himself." For precisely this it is he despairs of, and to his torment it is precisely this he cannot do, since by despair fire has entered into something that cannot burn, or cannot burn up, that is, into the self."
"It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke."
"Love is the unfathomable ground that is hidden in darkness, but the resolution is the triumphant victor who, like Orpheus, fetches the infatuation of falling in love to the light of day, for the resolution is the true form of love, the true explanation and transfiguration."
"Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning."
"People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness."
"For with his little secret that he cannot divulge, the poet buys this power of the word to tell everybody else's dark secrets. A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil."
"Deep within every human being there still lives the anxiety over the possibility of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the millions and millions in this enormous household. One keeps this anxiety at a distance by looking at the many round about who are related to him as kin and friends, but the anxiety is still there, nevertheless, and one hardly dares think of how he would feel if all this were taken away."
"To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going down on one's knees and thanking him."
"Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth."
"The surest of stubborn silences is not to hold one's tongue but to talk."
"A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret suffrings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music. People corwd around the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul."
"I am poor-you are my riches; dark-you are my light; I own nothing, need nothing. And how could I own anything? After all, it is a contradiction that he can own something who does not own himself. I am happy as a child who is neither able to own anything nor allowed to. I own nothing, for I belong only to you; I am not, I have ceased to be, in order to be yours."
"The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about."
"Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate."
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