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Divided into six sections, Provocations contains a little of everything from Kierkegaard's prodigious output, including his wryly humorous attacks on what he calls the "mediocre shell" of conventional Christianity, his brilliantly pithy parables, his amazing insights on the human condition, and his incisive attempts to dig through the fluff of theological jargon and clear a way for the basics: decisiveness, obedience, passion, and recognition of the truth.

"This sermon was, by sacred authority, styled the author's own funeral sermon, most fitly, whether we respect the time or matter. It was preached not many days before his death, as if, having done this, there remained nothing for him to do but to die; and the matter is of death--the occasion and subject of all funeral sermons. It hath been observed of this reverend man, that his faculty in preaching continually increased, and that, as he exceeded others at first, so at last he exceeded himself.

"Ecclesiastes is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew title.

"The author represents himself as the son of David, and king over Israel in Jerusalem. The work consists of personal or autobiographic matter, at times expressed in aphorisms and maxims illuminated in terse paragraphs with reflections on the meaning of life and the best way of life. The work emphatically proclaims all the actions of man to be inherently "vain", "futile", "empty", or "meaningless," depending on translation, as the lives of both wise and foolish men end in death. While the teacher clearly promotes wisdom as a means for a well-lived earthly life, he is unable to ascribe eternal meaning to it. In light of this perceived senselessness, the preacher suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one's wife and work, which are gifts from the hand of God."

"Abu Hamed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzli (1058-1111), known as Algazel to the western medieval world, was born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia (modern day Iran). He was a Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, psychologist and mystic of Persian origin and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Sufi Islamic thought."