...if a person does not do what is right the very second he knows it is the right thing to do - then for a start the knowledge comes off the boil. Next comes the question of what the will thinks of the knowledge. The will is dialectical and has underneath it the whole of man's lower nature. If it doesn't like the knowledge, it doesn't immediately follow that the will goes and does the opposite of what was grasped in knowing...but then the will lets some time pass; there is an interim called "We will look into it tomorrow". During all this the knowing becomes more and more obscured, and the lower nature more and more victorious...and then when the knowing has become duly obscured, the will and the knowing can better understand one another. Eventually they are in entire agreement, since knowing has now deserted to the side of the will and lets it be known that what the will wants is quite right. (Kierkegaard, 'Sickness Unto Death')
Beliefs are sometimes demanding. Often they break in on us unexpectedly and take to ordering us around like uninvited tyrants. One minute we're sailing happily through life. The next we find ourselves with an uncomfortably demanding belief. This tyrant takes office and issues an imperative with such compelling force that we're unable to look him in the eye and say "no"....While the tyrant will have nothing of direct defiance, though, he can often be appeased by the promise of deferred obedience. If we promise him obedience later, he'll often take the bait. And if we put him off long enough he might just go away.
I Told Me So, p40-41
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