The Sickness Unto Death (Penguin Classics)

'The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is bound to be noticed.' So writes Kierkegaard through his pseudonymous persona, Anti-Climacus, in what is one of his greatest works of philosophy. For Anti-Climacus, a committed Christian, the human being's goal is to gain eternal life through direct accountability to God in this life, and to discover true selfhood is to acknowledge that ideal. The Sickness Unto Death is a profound exploration of why, very often, people fail to do this. Digging deep in the graveyard of denial, refusal and despair (both conscious and unconscious), it unearths the concept of absolute individuality and the self-awareness that has as its ideal a paradigm of selflessness.