Purity of heart is to will one thing : spiritual preparation for the office of confession / by Søren Kierkegaard ; translated from the Danish, with an introductory essay by Douglas V. Steers.

From the author's Edifying addresses of varied tenor (Opbyggelige taler i forskjellig aand).

Introduction: man and the eternal -- Remorse, repentance, confession: eternity's emissaries to man -- Barriers to willing one thing: variety and great moments are not one thing -- Barriers to willing one thing: the reward disease -- Barriers to willing one thing: willing out of fear of punishment -- Barriers to willing one thing: egocentric service of the good -- Barriers to willing one thing: commitment to a certain degree -- The price of willing one thing: commitment, loyalty, readiness to suffer all -- The price of willing one thing: the exposure of evasions -- The price of willing one thing: an examination of the extreme case of an incurable sufferer -- The price of willing one thing: the sufferer's use of cleverness to expose evasion -- What then must I do? The listener's role in a devotional address -- What them must I do? Live as an "individual" -- What then must I do? Occupation and vocational means and end -- Conclusion: man and the eternal.

Although this little book (it can be called an occasional address, yet without having the occasion which produces the speaker and gives him authority, or the occasion which produces the reader and makes him eager to learn) is like a fantasy, like a dream by day as it confronts the relationships of actuality: yet it is not without assurance and not without hope of accomplishing its object. It is in search of that solitary "individual," to whom it wholly abandons itself, by whom it wishes to be received as if it had arisen within his own heart; that solitary "individual" whom with joy and gratitude I call my reader; that solitary "individual" who reads willingly and slowly, who reads over and over again, and who reads aloud- for his own sake. If it finds him, then in the distance of the separation the understanding is perfect, if he retains for himself both the distance and the understanding in the inwardness of appropriation.