"Is despair an excellence or a defect? Purely dialectically, it is both. If only the abstract idea of despair is considered, without the thought of someone in despair, it must be regarded as a surpassing excellence. The possibility of this sickness is man's superiority over the animal, and this superiority distinguishes him in quite another way than does his erect walk, for it indicates infinite erectness or sublimity, that he is spirit. The possibility of this sickness is man's superiority over the animal; to be aware of this sickness is the Christian's superiority over natural man; to be cured of this sickness is the Christian's blessedness."

 

"When death is the greatest danger, we hope for life; but when we learn to know the even greater danger, we hope for death. When the danger is so great that death becomes the hope, then despair is the hopelessness of not even being able to die.”

 

"The despairing man cannot die; no more than "the dagger can slaughter thoughts" can despair consume the eternal, the self at the root of despair, whose worm does not die and whose fire is not quenched."

 

"Socrates demonstrated the immortality of the soul from the fact that the sickness of the soul (sin) does not consume it as sickness of the body consumes the body."

 

"Eternity is obliged to do this, because to have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession, an infinite concession, given to man, but it is also eternity's claim upon him."

 

"Precisely because the sickness of despair is totally dialectical, it is the worst misfortune never to have had that sickness; it is a true Godsend to get it, even if it is the most dangerous of illnesses, if one does not want to be cured f it."

 

"But whereas one kind of despair plunges wildly into the infinite and loses itself, another kind of despair seems to permit itself to be tricked out of itself by "the others." Surrounded by hordes of men, absorbed in all secular matters, more and more shrewd about the ways of the world--such a person forgets himself, forgets his name divinely understood, does not dare to believe in himself, finds it too hazardous to be himself and far easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, a mass man....

As is natural, the world generally has no understanding of what is truly appalling. The despair that not only does not cause one any inconvenience in life but makes life cozy band comfortable is in no way, of course, regarded as despair."

 

"Moreover, what if by not venturing at all in the highest sense (and to venture in the highest sense is precisely to become aware of oneself) I cowardly gain all earthly advantages--and lose myself! So it is with finitude's despair. Because a man is in this kind of despair he can very well live on in temporality, indeed, actually all the better, can appear to be a man, be publicly acclaimed, honored, and esteemed, be absorbed in all the temporal goals. In fact, what is the seculars' mentality consists simply of such men who, so to speak mortgage themselves to the world. They use their capacities, amass, money, carry on secular enterprises, calculate shrewdly, etc., perhaps make a name in history, but themselves they are not; spiritually speaking, they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self before God--however self-seeking they are otherwise."

 

"Such things do not create much of a stir in the world; for a self is the last thing the world cares about and the most dangerous thing of all for a person to show signs of having."

 

"The philistine-bourgeois mentality thinks that it controls possibility, that it has tricked this prodigious elasticity into the trap or madhouse of probability, thinks that it holds it prisoner; it leads possibility around imprisoned in the cage of probability, exhibits it, imagines itself to be the master, does not perceive that precisely thereby it has imprisoned itself in the thralldom of spiritlessness and tis the most wretched of all."

 

"Sin is: before God in despair not to will to be oneself, or before God in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification of despair. The emphasis is on before God, or with a conception of God; it is the conception of God that makes sin dialectically, ethically, and religiously what lawyers call "aggravated" despair."

 

"And what infinite reality [Realitet] the self gains by being conscious of existing before God, by becoming a human self whose criterion is God."

 

"No, the opposite of sin is faith, as it says in Romans 14:23;"

 

"the greater conception of Christ, the more self."

 

"in governments the masses intimidate the king and the newspapers intimidate the king and the newspapers intimidate the cabinet ministers."

 

"God is indeed a friend of order, and to that end he is present in the present at every point, is everywhere present at every moment (in textbook this is listed as one of the attributes of god, something people think about a little a once in a while but certainly never try to think about continuously)."

 

"Now I have spoken," declares God in heaven," we shall discuss it again in eternity. In the meantime, you can do what you want to, but judgment is at hand."

 

[Soren being subjective as God not being able to judge in mass]

"Therefore let us just stick together and make sure that the clergy preach this way. And should there happen to be an individual who dares to speak otherwise, an individual foolish enough to make his own lifer concerned and accountable in fear and trembling, and then in addition make himself a nuisance to others--then let us protect ourselves by regarding him as mad or, if necessary, by putting him to death. If many of us do it, then there is no wrong....

What many do is Gods will."

 

"Therefore, despair of the forgiveness of sins is offense. and offense is the intensification of sins."

 

"Sin against the Holy Spirit is the positive from of being offended."