“I am so fed up and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it - alas, not even the bliss of heaven.”

— Sören Kierkegaard

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Sören Kierkegaard 309

Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855

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“I have only [written the Water Margin] to fill up my spare time, and give pleasure to myself; […] I have written it so that the uneducated can read it as well as the educated […]. Alas! Life is so short that I shall not even know what the reader thinks about it, but still I shall be satisfied if a few of my friends will read it and be interested. Also I do not know what I may think of it in my future life after death, because then I may not able to even read it. So why think anything further about it?”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Pearl S. Buck: "Alas, I was born to die! How can I know what those who come after me and read my book will think of it? I cannot even know what I myself, born into another incarnation, will think of it. I do not even know if I myself afterwards can even read this book. Why therefore should I care?" (All Men are Brothers, 1933; p. xiii)
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“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Recollection by Gilbert J. Greene, quoted in The Speaking Oak (1902) by Ferdinand C. Iglehart and Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln (1917) by Ervin S. Chapman
Posthumous attributions

“Who sits alone by the bright window?
My shadow and I, only we two.
But the lamp burns out, there is darkness.
Even my shadow forsakes me.
Alas, alas!
I am forlorn!”

Li Qingzhao (1084–1155) Chinese writer

"To the Tune of ‘Like a Dream’", in The White Pony: An Anthology Of Chinese Poetry (G. Allen & Unwin, 1949), ed. Robert Payne, p. 300

“My understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and there I saw three heavens: of which sight I marvelled greatly. And though I see three heavens — and all in the blessed manhood of Christ — none is more, none is less, none is higher, none is lower, but even-like in bliss.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Ninth Revelation, Chapter 22

“I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy, and yet I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XXXIV).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“Where the world comes in my way — and it comes in my way everywhere — I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but — my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Dover 2005, p. 296, 297
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

“I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 10, sc. 2
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“And immediately upon presenting himself to the soul, God likewise discloses himself and expands the soul and gives it gifts and consolations which the soul has never before experienced, and which are far more profound than earlier ones. In this state, the soul is drawn out of all darkness and granted a greater awareness of God than I would have thought possible. This awareness is of such clarity, certitude, and abysmal profundity that there is no heart in the world that can ever in any way understand it or even conceive it. Even my own heart cannot think about it by itself, or ever return to it to understand or even conceive anything about it. This state occurs only when God, as a gift, elevates the soul to himself, for no heart by itself can in any way expand itself to attain it. Therefore, there is absolutely nothing that can be said about this experience, for no words can be found or invented to express or explain it; no expansion of thought or mind can possibly reach to those things, they are so far beyond everything -- for there is nothing which can explain God. I repeat there is absolutely nothing which can explain God. Christ's faithful one affirmed with utmost certitude and wanted it understood that there is absolutely nothing which can explain God.”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, p. 213

“Alas, I was wrong when I spoke those word: you are so skilled that you have been able to take even my fear away.”

Pedro Muñoz Seca (1879–1936) Spanish writer

Said shortly afterwards during the trial.
Source: http://www.abc.es/20081104/opinion-firmas/mataron-munoz-seca-20081104.html

“All morning, I did nothing but repeat: "Man is an abyss, man is an abyss." - I could not, alas, find anything better.”

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Drawn and Quartered (1983)

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