Two Kierkegaard quotes from The Sickness Unto Death
“…while one kind of despair steers blindly in the infinite and loses itself, another kind of despair allows itself to be, so to speak, cheated of its self by ‘the others’. By seeing the multitude of people around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs, by being wise to the ways of the world, such a a person forgets himself, in a divine sense forgets his own name, dares not believe in himself, finds himself too risky, finds it much easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, along with the crowd.” (p. 63-64)
“A man in [finitude's despair] can very well live on in temporality; indeed he can do so all the more easily, be to all appearances a human being, praised by others, honoured and esteemed, occupied with all the goals of temporal life. Yes, what we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn themselves to the world. They use their abilities, amass wealth, carry out world enterprieses, make prudent calculations, etc., and perhaps are mentioned in history, but they are not themselves. In a spiritual sense they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self for God - however selfish they are otherwise.” (p. 65)
Page numbers from the Penguin Classics edition… two fantastic sections literally facing each other, one page after the other.