Fuck Yeah Søren Kierkegaard!

…And it was the delight of his eyes and his heart’s desire. And he stretched forth his hand and took hold of it, but he could not retain it; it was offered to him, but he could not possess it alas, for it was the delight of his eyes and his heart’s desire. And his soul was near to despair; but he chose the greater suffering, of losing it and giving it up, to the lesser, which was to possess it without right; or to speak more truly… he chose the lesser suffering of being without it rather than to possess it at the cost of his peace of soul… and strange to relate, it came to pass that it was good for him.

And so we parted. I spent the whole night crying on my bed. But the next day I behaved as usual, wittier and in better spirits than ever. That was necessary.

I went to Berlin. I suffered greatly. I thought of her every day.

What did she do? In her womanly despair she overstepped the boundary. She evidently knew that I was melancholy; she intended that anxiety should drive me to extremes. The reverse happened. She certainly brought me to the point at which anxiety drove me to extremes; but then with gigantic strength I constrained my whole nature so as to repel her. There was only one thing to do and that was to repel her with all my powers.

During those two months of deceit I observed a careful caution in what I said directly to her from time to time: “Give in, let me go; you cannot bear it.” Thereupon she answered passionately that she would bear anything rather than let me go.

I also suggested giving the appearance that it was she who broke off the engagement, so that she might be spared all offence. That she would not have. She answered: if she could bear the other she could bear this too.

But insofar as I was what, alas, I was, I had to say that I could be happier in my unhappiness without her than with her; she had moved me and I would have liked, more than liked, to have done everything for her.

But there was a divine protest, that is how I understood it. The wedding. I had to hide such a tremendous amount from her, had to base the whole thing upon something untrue.

I wrote to her and sent her back the ring.

And now of course my melancholy woke once more. Her devotion once again put the whole “responsibility” upon me on a tremendous scale, whereas her pride had almost made me free from “responsibility”. My opinion is, and my thought was, that it was God’s punishment upon me.

I cannot decide clearly what purely emotional impression she made upon me. One thing is certain: that she gave herself to me, almost worshipping me, asking me to love her, which moved me to such an extent that I was willing to risk all for her.

But inwardly; the next day I saw that I had made a false step. A penitent such as I was, my vita ante acta, my melancholy, that was enough.

I suffered unspeakably at that time.

She seemed to notice nothing. On the contrary her spirits were so high that once she said she had accepted me out of pity. In short, I have never known such high spirits.

On September 8 I left my house with the firm purpose of deciding the matter. We met each other in the street outside their house. She said there was nobody at home. I was foolhardy enough to look upon that as an invitation, just the opportunity I wanted. I went in with her. We stood alone in the living room. She was a little uneasy. I asked her to play me something as she usually did. She did so; but that did not help me. Then suddenly I took the music away and closed it, not without a certain violence, threw it down on the piano and said: “Oh, what do I care about music now! It is you I am searching for, it is you whom I have sought after for two years.” She was silent. I did nothing else to make an impression upon her; I even warned her against myself, against my melancholy.

Mysticism has not the patience to wait for God’s revelation.

People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.

Sometimes, there is such a tumult in my head that it feels as though the roof had been lifted off my cranium, and then it seems as though the hobgoblins had liften up a mountain and were holding a ball and festivities there—God preserve me!

The reason why I far prefer the autumn to the spring is because in the autumn one looks up to heaven—in the spring at the earth.

Paganism never gets nearer the truth than Pilate: What is truth? And with that crucifies it.

…A situation.

A man wishes to write a novel in which one of the characters goes mad; while working on it he himself goes mad by degrees, and finishes it in the first person.

Everything is a question of ear—the rules of grammar—the dictates of law—a thorough-bass—the philosophical system—and therefore the next life is also represented as nothing but music, a great harmony—may life’s discord soon end in it…

I have just returned from a party of which I was the life and soul; wit poured from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me—but I went away—and the dash should be as long as the earth’s orbit———————and wanted to shoot myself.