When I was very young and in the cave of Trophonius I forgot to laugh. Then, when I got older, when I opened my eyes and saw the real world, I began … - Søren Kierkegaard

When I was young, I forgot how to laugh in the cave of Trophonius; when I was older, I opened my eyes and beheld reality, at which I began to laugh, and since then, I have not stopped laughing. I saw that the meaning of life was to secure a livelihood, and that its goal was to attain a high position; that love’s rich dream was marriage with an heiress; that friendship’s blessing was help in financial difficulties; that wisdom was what the majority assumed it to be; that enthusiasm consisted in making a speech; that it was courage to risk the loss of ten dollars; that kindness consisted in saying, “You are welcome,” at the dinner table; that piety consisted in going to communion once a year. This I saw, and I laughed.

No politics has been able, no politics is able, no worldliness has been able, no worldliness has been able to think through or to actualize to the ultimate consequences this idea: human-equality, human likeness [Menneske-Lighed]. To achieve perfect equality in the medium of world-likeness [Verds-Lighed], that is, in the medium that by nature is dissimilarity, and to achieve it in a world-like [verds-ligt], that is, differentiating way, is eternally, impossible, as one can see by the categories. If perfect equality, likeness, should be achieved, then worldliness would have to be completely eradicated, and when perfect equality, likeness, is achieved worldliness ceases to be. But is it not, then, like an obsession, that worldliness has gotten the idea of wanting to force perfect equality, likeness, and to force it in a worldly way – in worldliness, world-likeness! Ultimately only the essentially religious can with the help of eternity effect human equality [Menneske-Lighed], the godly, the essential, the not-worldly, the true, the only true possible human equality; and this is also why – be it said to tis glorification – the essentially religious is the true humanity [Menneskelighed].

Confession should be only in secret before God, who knows everything anyway, and thus it could remain hidden in one's innermost being. But at a dinner – and a woman! A dinner-it is not some hidden, remote place, nor is the lighting dim, nor is the mood like that among graves, nor are the listeners silent or invisibly present.

As soon as the discourse is about a holy spirit, about believing in the holy spirit, how many do you think believe in that? Or when the discourse is about an evil spirit that should be renounced: how many do you think believe in such a thing? How can this be? Is it perhaps because the subject becomes too earnest when it is the holy spirit? For I can talk about, believe in, the spirit of the age, the spirit of the world, and the like and do not thereby need to think of anything specific. It is a kind of spirit, but I am not absolutely bound by what I say. And not being bound by what one says is highly prized.