The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air Quotes

“The bird keeps silent and suffers. However much heartache it has, it keeps silent. It does not complain; it accuses no one; it sighs only to fall silent again. The bird is not free from suffering, but the silent bird frees itself from what makes the suffering more burdensome: from the misunderstood sympathy of others; frees itself from what makes the suffering last longer: from all the talk of suffering; frees itself from what makes the suffering into something worse than suffering: from the sin of impatience and sadness.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“The person whose joy is dependant upon certain conditions is not himself joyful; his joy, after all, is that of the conditions and is conditional upon them.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“He had thought that to pray was to talk; he learned that to pray is not only to keep silent, but to listen. And that is how it is: to pray is not to listen to oneself speak, but is to come to keep silent, and to continue keeping silent, to wait, until the person who prays hears God.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“The bird keeps silent and waits: it knows, or rather it fully and firmly believes, that everything takes place at its appointed time. Therefore the bird waits, but it knows that it is not granted to it to know the hour or the day; therefore it keeps silent. Then, when the moment comes, the silent bird understands that this is the moment; it makes use of it and is never put to shame.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“Precisely because a human being has the ability to speak, for this very reason the ability to keep silent is an art; and precisely because this advantage of his tempts him so easily, the ability to keep silent is a great art.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“You “shall” become a child again, and therefore, or to that end, you shall begin by being able to and by willing to understand the words that are as if directed at a child, and which every child understands—you shall understand the words as a child understands them: “You shall.” The child never asks about reasons; the child does not dare do so, neither does the child need to—and the one corresponds to the other, for precisely because the child does not dare do so, neither does it need to ask about reasons; because for the child it is reason enough that it shall—indeed, all reasons together would not be reason enough to the child to the degree that this is. And the child never says, “I cannot.” The child does not dare do so, and neither is it true; the one corresponds precisely to the other—for precisely because the child does not dare say, “I cannot,” it is not therefore true that it cannot, and it therefore turns out that the truth is that it can do it, for it is impossible to be unable to do it when one does not dare do otherwise: nothing is more certain—as long as it is certain that one does not dare do otherwise. And the child never looks for an evasion or an excuse, for the child understands the frightful truth that there is no evasion or excuse, there is no hiding place, neither in heaven nor on earth, neither in the parlor nor in the garden, where it could hide from this “You shall.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses