Kierkegaard's Writings, III, Part I: Either/Or. Part I

I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t feel like riding—the motion is too powerful; I don’t feel like walking—it is too tiring; I don’t feel like lying down, for either I would have to stay down, and I don’t feel like doing that, or I would have to get up again, and I don’t feel like doing that, either. Summa Summarum: I don’t feel like doing anything.

How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought—they demand freedom of speech.

And people crowd around the poet and say to him, “Sing again soon”—in other words, may new sufferings torture your soul, and may your lips continue to be formed as before, because your screams would only alarm us, but the music is charming.

4What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound [I 3] anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.

I picture to myself a young, energetic girl of genius having the extraordinary idea of wanting to avenge her sex on me. She thinks she will be able to coerce me, to make me taste the pains of unhappy love. That, you see, is a girl for me. If she herself does not think of it profoundly enough, I shall come to her assistance. I shall writhe like the Molbos’ eel.13 And when I have brought her to the point where I want her, then she is mine.”

A priest who hears confessions is separated by a grillwork from the person making confession; he does not see him, he only hears. As he listens, he gradually forms a picture of the other’s outward appearance corresponding to what he hears; thus he finds no contradiction. It is different, however, when one sees and hears simultaneously but sees a grillwork between oneself and the speaker.

I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t feel like riding—the motion is too powerful; I don’t feel like walking—it is too tiring; I don’t feel like lying down, for either I would have to stay down, and I don’t feel like doing that, or I would have to get up again, and I don’t feel like doing that, either.

How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought—they demand freedom of speech.

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound [I 3] anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.

Greatness, knowledge, renown,

Friendship, pleasure and possessions,

All is only wind, only smoke:

To say it better, all is nothing