The Movement of Infinity and the Taste of Finitude

...The knight of faith drains the deep sadness of life in infinite resignation, he knows the blessedness of infinity, he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, the most precious thing in the world, and yet the finite tastes just as good to him as to one who never knew anything higher, because his remaining in finitude would have no trace of a fearful, anxious routine, and yet he has this security that makes him delight in it as if finitude were the surest thing of all. And yet—and yet!—the whole earthly figure he presents is a new creation by virtue of the absurd. He is continually making the movement of infinity, but he does it with such precision and assurance that he continually gets finitude out of it, and no one ever suspects anything else...

Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843).

Full text: http://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/chapter-2-preliminary-expectoration/

Next post: Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Frost at Midnight