Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief, but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief that sustains thought and holds the world together.

— Søren Kierkegaard

Everyone take his revenge on the world. My revenge consists in bearing my distress and anguish enclosed deeply within me while my laughter entertains everyone. If I see someone suffer I give him my sympathy, console him as best I can, and listen to him calmly when he assures me that I am fortunate. If only I can keep this up until the day I die I shall have had my revenge

— Søren Kierkegaard

Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is united is passion, and faith is a passion.

— Søren Kierkegaard

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

— Søren Kierkegaard

For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.

— Søren Kierkegaard

For I have trained myself and am I training myself always to be able to dance lightly in the service of thought

— Søren Kierkegaard

For love is exultant when it unites equals, but it is triumphant when it makes that which was unequal equal in love.

— Søren Kierkegaard

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.

— Søren Kierkegaard

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.

— Søren Kierkegaard

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.

— Søren Kierkegaard