Christian Discourses

"the blessing is the good in itself; it is the one thing needful, is infinitely more glorious and blessed than all success. What, then, is the blessing? The blessing is God’s consent to the undertaking that a person prays God to bless. And what does it mean that he prays for the blessing? It means that he dedicates himself and his undertaking to serving God – regardless of whether or not it, humanly speaking, succeeds or progresses."

"If one is to lift a whole generation, verily one must know it. Hence it is that these proclaimers of Christianity who begin straightway with orthodoxy have not much influence, and that only upon the few. For Christianity is far behind. One must begin with paganism. So it was that I began with Either/Or. Thereby I got the generation to go with me; it did not even dream whither it was going, or where we are now. But people became aware of the problems. But, as the title of my Discourses suggests, my whole work as an author is one great thought, and that is: to wound from behind."

"Kierkegaard said of the year 1848. 'It was beyond all comparison the richest and most fruitful year I have experienced as an author.'"

"Luke 24:51 And it happened, as he blessed them, he was parted from them."

"At the Communion table you are able to do nothing at all, not even this, that you hold fast the thought of your unworthiness and in this make yourself receptive to the blessing. Or would you dare, and even if it were only at the last moment as you come up to the Communion table, would you dare even with regard to the thought that recognizes your own unworthiness, would you dare to guarantee yourself, trust in yourself, that you would be able to keep away everything disturbing, every anxious thought or recollection that, alas, wounds from behind, every suddenly aroused mistrust that turns against you as if you were still not adequately prepared, every most transient delusion of security in yourself!"

"Out there the stars proclaim your majesty, and the perfection of everything proclaims your greatness, but in here it is the imperfect, it is sinners who praise your even greater greatness! – The supper of remembrance I once again prepared; may you then beforehand be brought to mind and thanked for your greatness in showing mercy."

"Outside everything is in movement, nationalism surges high in all, everyone talks of sacrificing life and blood, is perhaps also ready to do it, but supported by the omnipotence of public opinion. And I sit in a quiet room; I recognize only one danger: the religious danger."

"The book had no reviews from contemporaries. A second edition was published in 1862. Emanuel Hirsch translated the book and called it a devotional book that combines simplicity and inwardness with reflection and presents crucial Christian concepts and presuppositions with unusual clarity."

"God is greater than your own heart. Ah, whether it was a sickness of soul that so darkened your mind every night that finally in deadly anxiety, brought almost to the point of madness by the conception of God’s holiness, you thought you had to condemn yourself; whether it was something terrible that so weighed upon your conscience that your heart condemned itself – God is greater!"

"the more profound person does not allow himself to be disturbed by externality."

"Of the many completed works, only Christian Discourses (April 26) and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress (July 24-27) were published that year (1848). Kierkegaard intended to terminate his writing with them, just as he had planned to end with Concluding Unscientifc Postscript in 1845."

"“What.….lowly?” says the bird. “Let us never think about such things; one flies away from that!” “What.….lowly?” says the Christian. “I am a Christian!” “Alas, lowly!” says the pagan.“ “I am what I am,” says the bird; “What I shall become has not yet been disclosed,” says the lowly Christian; “I am nothing and will never become anything,” says the lowly pagan. “I exist,” says the bird; “Life begins in death,” says the lowly Christian; “I am nothing, and in death I remain nothing,” says the lowly pagan."

"What is the temptation that in itself is many temptations? Certainly it is not the glutton’s temptation to live in order to eat; no (what rebellion against the divine order!) it is to live in order to slave. The temptation is this, to lose oneself, to lose one’s soul, to cease to be a human being and live as a human being instead of being freer than the bird, and godforsaken to slave more wretchedly than the animal. Yes, to slave!"

"Do not worry about what you will wear – the pagans seek all these things. Matthew 6:31-32 This care the bird does not have."

"What, then, is the lowly Christian who before God is himself? He is a human being. Inasmuch as he is a human being, he in a certain sense is like the bird, which is what it is. But he is also a Christian, which is indeed implied in the question about what the lowly Christian is. To that extent he is not like the bird, because the bird is what it is. But one cannot be a Christian in this way; if one is a Christin, one must have become that. And he can continually become more and more, because he can continually become more and more a Christian. As a human being he was created in God’s image, but as a Christian he has God as the prototype."

"For the bird there is no question of to be or not to be; by of the shortcut it slips past all the cares of dissimilarity. Whether it is a bird just like all other birds, whether it is “just as good a bird” as the others of the same species, indeed, even whether it is just like its mate – of all such things it does not think at all, so impatient is it in its joy of being. No young girl on the point of leaving for a dance can be as impatient to leave as the bird is to set about being what it is. It has not a moment, not the briefest, to give away if this would delay it from being; the briefest moment would be a fatally long time for it if at that moment it was not allowed to be what it is; it would die of impatience at the least little objection to be summarily allowed to be."

"It is told of a pious hermit, who had lived, dead to the world, for many, many years strictly observing the vow of poverty, that he had won the friendship and devotion of a rich man. That the rich man died and bequeathed his whole fortune to the hermit, who for so long a time had lived on the daily bread. But when someone came and told the hermit this, he answered, “There must be a mistake. How can he make me his heir when I was dead long before him!” – Ah, how poor wealth looks alongside of – wealth!"

"Thus the upbuilding discourse is fighting in many ways for the eternal to be victorious in a person, but in the appropriate place and with the aid of the lily and the bird, it does not forget first and foremost to relax into a smile. Relax, you struggling one! One can forget how to laugh, but God keeps a person from ever forgetting how to smile! A person can forget much without any harm and in his old age certainly has to put up with forgetting a lot that he could wish to remember, but God forbid that a person would forget the lily and the bird before his final blessed end!"

"We speak of a lust for life based on despair, which simply because it does not have the next day lives totally in the today. But this is an illusion, because one cannot exactly live in that way in the today, least of all totally. A human being has the eternal within him, and therefore he cannot possibly be totally in the purely momentary. The more he attempts to will to dispense with the eternal, the further away he is from living today. Weather the pagan will die tomorrow, we leave undecided; one thing is certain, he is not living today."

"The rich Christian became ignorant of it; he is rich, poor, rich. The rich pagan is poor, poor, poor. The rich Christian does not talk about his earthly wealth at all but only about the wealth. The rich pagan knows nothing else to talk about except his mammon."

"To be properly positioned, to take the correct position, is important for everything in life. The Christian does this with regard to the next day because it does not exist for him. – It is well known that the actor, blinded as he is by the effect of the lighting, faces the deepest darkness, the blackest night. Now, one would think that this must disturb him, make him uneasy. But no, ask him and you will hear; he himself admits that precisely this supports him, calms him, keeps him in the enchantment of the illusion. It would, however, disturb him if he could see some particular, catch a glimpse of a particular spectator. So also with the next day."

"No one can serve two masters – the pagans seek all these things. Matthew 6:24"

"The bird and the lily serve only one master and, what amounts to the same thing, serve him wholly. So be like the bird and the lily; you, too, serve only one master, serve him with all your heart, with all your might, and with all your mind, and with all your strength – then you also are without care. The Christian does not have this care."

"When vacillation has ruled long enough and, of course, like all ungodly rulers has sucked the blood and wasted the marrow, disconsolateness comes to power. Then the pagan would prefer to get rid of the thought of God entirely; now he wants to sink into the emptiness of worldliness, there to seek forgetfulness, forgetfulness of the most dangerous (precisely because it is the most uplifting) of all thoughts the thought of being remembered by God, of existing before God. Indeed, if one wills to sink, what is more dangerous than everything that will lift up! Yet he has, so he thinks, overcome his pain, expelled all delusions, learned to console himself."

"I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will set my dark saying to the music of the harp. Psalm 49:5"

"The one who wants something must also know what he wants, must be conscious of what it is that he wants."

"Where there is nothing terrifying whatever and no terror whatever, there is nothing that builds up either, no upbuilding whatever. There is forgiveness of sin – that is upbuilding. The terrifying is that there is sin, and the magnitude of the terror in the inwardness of guilt-consciousness is proportionate to the dimension of the upbuilding. The terrifying is that there is pain, strife, danger; and the magnitude of the terrifying and the terror is proportionate to what builds up and to the upbuilding."

"Consider that if a person had lived his whole life in undisturbed enjoyment of all the good things on this earth, consider that in the moment of death he has nothing whatever to recollect, nothing whatever with which to approach recollection’s vast future. Enjoyment is pleasant at the moment but, just like the momentary in its emptiness, does not make a good showing for recollection and does not exist at all for eternal recollecting. On the other hand, there is no recollecting more blessed, and nothing more blessed to recollect, than sufferings over and done with in company with God; this is the secret of sufferings. So, then: either seventy years in all possible enjoyment, and nothing, nothing for eternity (of all the most dreadful lack, and also indeed the longest lasting!), or seventy years in suffering and then an eternity for blessed recollecting. Blessedly to recollect the sufferings over and done with in covenant with God!"

"How could there be dreams if there were no dreamer! The term “dream-life” is connected with the more noble part; in the awakened person the spirit is awake, whereas there is indeed something that sleeps, namely the lower nature. In the child and youth, it is the spirit that sleeps and the lower nature is awake; yet it is the destiny of spirit to awaken, and therefore that life is called a dream-life."

"Hardship procures hope. It does not give hope, but it procures it. It is the person himself who acquires it, eternity’s hope which is planted in him, hidden in his innermost being; but hardship procures it."

"So the presumptuous pagan insanely wants to add a foot to his stature, insanely wants what was denied, in blind confidence wants to venture the foolhardiness of plunging down from the peak of the temple – and what is even more presumptuous, wants God to help him do it. Abandoning himself more and more to this unholy game, he wants by inadmissible means to penetrate the forbidden, discover the hidden, discern the future."

"The rich Christian indeed realizes that in the highest sense the wealth is not his own property. Oh no, the owner is God, who expressly wants it administered in this way. That is how far it is from the rich Christian’s being able to call the earthly wealth “mine” – it is God’s property; and as far as possible it is to be managed according to the owner’s wishes, managed with the owner’s indifference to money and monetary value, managed by being given away at the right time and place."

"What, then, does the poor Christian live on? On the daily bread. In that he resembles the bird. But the bird, which certainly is not a pagan, is not a Christian either - because the Christian prays for the daily bread. But then is he even poorer than the bird, since he even has to pray for it, whereas the bird receives it without praying? Yes, the pagan is of this opinion."

"The one who is strong without God is in fact weak. But the one who became utterly weak – in him God became strong. That God is stronger and stronger in him, means that he is stronger and stronger. But if you were utterly weak in perfect obedience, then all the mighty on the earth in union would be unable to bend a hair on your head in any way other than God wills it."

"What is told in the parable fits such a pagan, the parable about the vineyard workers who misappropriated the vineyard and acted as if the owner did not exist; and insofar as he is brought up in Christianity, what they are reported to have said also fits him: “Let us kill the son, and the vineyard will be ours.” The life of every human being is God’s possession; the human being is his bond servant. But one cannot kill God; on the other hand, as is said, one certainly can kill the thought of him."

"But let us first try to make it really clear that a person’s becoming weak means that God becomes strong in him inwardly. And this is what we first and foremost must ask of the sufferer, that he look away from the external as quickly as possible, turn his gaze inward, lest his gaze, and he along with it, become stuck in an external view of the relation of his suffering to the surrounding world. When the former is done, when it is made clear that a person’s becoming weak means that God becomes strong in him inwardly – then it indeed follows of itself that it is joyful."

"There is so much talk in the world about conflict and conflict and conflict. There is the talk about this man and that man who live in conflict with each other, about this man and his wife, who, although united in the holy bonds of marriage, live in conflict with each other, about the scholarly conflict that has commenced between this one and that one, about someone who challenged someone else to a duel. There is talk about a riot that broken out in the city, about the thousands of enemy troops who are advancing against the country, about the imminent European war, about the conflict of the elements that rages horribly."

"There is scarcely any more upside-down thought that this, that the eternal is the uncertain, and scarcely any more upside-down sagacity than that which lets go of the eternal – because it is the uncertain, and grasps the temporal – because it is the certain."

"If someone wanted to grasp the eternal in order to have earthly advantage from it, he is lost; if someone wanted to by the Holy Spirit, he is lost. Why is he lost? Because he temporally lost the eternal; he lost the eternal by wanting to reduce it to the temporal. The purpose or the objective is always higher than the means."

"Only with the help of the eternal is a person able to let go of the lost temporal thing in such a way that he loses it only temporally. If the eternal does not help, then he loses much more than the temporal. But when the temporally losing of the lost temporal thing is a qualification of the eternal in the one who loses, then eternity is certainly very close to him."

"“To gain everything,” no one can ask for more, and if one gains everything, it is clearer than day that one loses nothing at all. And that this is joyful is certainly easy enough to perceive. Any child can immediately understand that; indeed, in the cravings of his desires, even the most confused and impatient young person can understand that at once. If he does not misunderstand this and thereby the entire discourse. These discourses actually are not for a young person, at least not to be used at once; not until his life has first given him the text can he perhaps find use for them and better understand the theme."

"There is much said in the world about there being two ways to truth: the way of faith and the way of doubt. But this is just as strange as to say that there are two ways to heaven, and one of them leads to hell."

"And just because it seems so very easy for thought, untried in the actuality of life and ignorant of any pressure, to swing up and down and down and up, to wheel around to the right and to the left, is it also so easy when adversity presses on the thought that should make the swing, is it then so easy when thought is to manage to turn around the one who in suffering and adversity continually wants to take the opposite position? That is, for thought, for aimless and ownerless thought, thought as such in general, thought that belongs nowhere and is not anybody’s, thought that shadowboxes with the unnamed names and definitions that define nothing: “here/there,” “right/left,” “straight ahead/turned around” – for thought as a vagrant it is easy enough to do the trick. But when it is thought with a name, when it is my thought, or when it is your thought and, when you are a sufferer, it consequently becomes an earnest matter that thought, which can turn easily enough, acquire in earnest this power over you to turn you around despite all the many things that manifoldly prevent you – is this, then, so easy?"

"With regard to sin, a turning around is required; with regard to eternity’s comfort, the same is required but in a milder form – namely, that one turn around. To the sinner, the rigorousness of the Law says terrifyingly, “Turn around!” To the suffering one, eternity says gently, sympathetically, “Oh, just turn around.”"

"But (to offer you a little lighter fare if the Scriptural text about first seeking God’s kingdom should be too strong for you) then do you believe that the poet, whose songs delighted humankind, do you believe that he could have written these songs if adversity and hard sufferings had not been there to tune the soul! It is precisely in adversity, “when the heart sits in deepest gloom, then the harp of joy is turned.” Or do you believe that the one who in truth knew how to comfort others, do you believe that he would have been able to do this if adversity had not been for him the requisite prosperity that had helped him to proficiency in this beautiful art!"

"Watch Your Step When You Go to the House of the Lord. Ecclesiastes 5:1"

"What is honesty before God? It is that your life expresses what you say. We human beings have to be satisfied with less, with one person’s solemnly assuring the other that this and that is what he honestly means. But God in heaven, the infinitely lofty one or – yes, here it comes again – God, the knower of hearts, who is very close to you: God understands only one kind of honesty, that a person’s life expresses what he says. All other honesty, all other solemnity, all mere assurance that one means what one says is to God a deception, an untruth – such an invocation is presumptuousness toward him."

"The one who has any knowledge of himself at all knows from his own experience that it is rather that one has in one’s innermost being a secret anxiety about and wariness of the truth, a fear of getting to know too much. Or do you actually believe that it is everyone’s honest desire to get to know very effectually what self-denial is, to get it made clear that every excuse, every evasion, every extenuation, every refuge in the false but favorable opinion of others is cut off for him! Do you believe this? Well, I need not wait for your answer, because if it were the case, then everyone would in truth have self-denial, since precisely this is the first form of self-denial."

"Christ’s suffering is not to be brought to mind as a past event – oh, save your sympathy! No, when this horror is portrayed, it is something present, and you are present, and I, at something present, and as – accomplices in guilt!"

"No one can add one foot to his growth – the pagans seek all these things. Matthew 6:31-32 This care the lily and the bird do not have."