Greek Philosophy

Søren Kierkegaard, Prefaces & Writing Smapler, edt. & tr. Todd W. Nichol (Princeton University Press, 1997), VII., p. 42:

. . . Although Greek philosophy is consequently very uplifting, diffused over it there is also a pensive sadness in which it is reconciled with the earthly. It knows full well its noble ancestry and does not deny it either, yet takes no vain delight in dissimilarity and thus accommodates itself to the everyday. It is like a god who walks about in human form and at every moment works a miracle with the humble everyday phrase, although in everything he still resembles an ordinary human being except insofar as that sadness, now as a faint touch of depression, bows down his figure and now transfigures itself as a divine jest that rejuvenates his figure almost to the point of jocularity.