Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 6 Quotes

“There is something spectral about me - and this is both the good and the bad in me - something that makes it impossible for anyone to endure having to see me every day and thus have a real relationship with me. Of course, in the light cloak in which I generally show myself, it is another matter. But at home it would be noted that I fundamentally dwell in a spirit world. I had been engaged to her for 1 year, and she did not really know me. - So she would have been shattered. In turn, she would probably have made a mess of me, for I was constantly overstraining myself with her because in a certain sense reality was too light. I was too heavy for her, and she was too light for me, but both can truly lead to overstraining myself.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 6: Journals NB11 - NB14

“The lyrical author is only concerned with his production, enjoys the pleasure of producing, often perhaps only after pain and effort; but he has nothing to do with others, he does not write in order that: in order to enlighten men or in order to help them along the right road, in order to bring about something; in short he does not write in order that.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 6: Journals Nb11 - Nb14

“Every person shudders at becoming a personality, shudders at standing as a personality vis-à-vis others―he shudders at it because he knows very well that this makes it possible for the others to catch sight of him. The human being shudders at becoming manifest; thus he loves, if not pitch darkness, then at any rate twilight, mystification, impersonality.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 6: Journals NB11 - NB14