Poets From Denmark

"Jeg kunde slet ikke sove For Nattergalens Røst, Som fra de dunkle Skove Sig trængte til mit Bryst. Jeg aabnede Vinduet stille Og stirred i Mulmet hen, Og lod hver Elskovstrille Mig synge om igjen."

"There is no God, and man is His prophet," said Niels bitterly, but with a touch of sadness. "Yes, exactly!" jeered Hjerrild; a moment afterwards he said, "Yet atheism is exceedingly modest in its claims, for its object is really nothing or less than to disillusion mankind. The belief in a God who guides and judges is man's last great illusion, and when this is gone—what then? He will be wiser; but richer, happier? I do not see it."

"... Man's love is a course of drill. And we submit to it; even those whom no one loves submit—contemptible weaklings that we are!" She rose from her recumbent position and looked threateningly across at Niels. "If I were beautiful—oh, I mean bewitchingly beautiful, lovelier than any woman that ever lived, so that all who saw me were smitten, as if by magic, with the anguish of unquenchable love—how I should compel them by the power of my beauty to adore, not their traditional, bloodless ideal, but me, myself, as I lived and moved, every single inch of me, every corner of my being and every spark of my nature!"

"However high a mortal may set his throne, however firmly he may place upon his brow the tiara of exception that signifies genius, he can never be perfectly sure that he may not some day, like , be seized with the strange desire to go on all-fours and eat grass with the meanest beasts of the field."

"And perhaps, I think to myself now, there are no real stories at all with beginnings, middles and ends, perhaps there simply is what there is, and what happens, and the lines we draw between those points are just nonsense and dreams, and the figure that arises from those lines could just as well have been something else completely."

"Perhaps I am finally the person I have really always been."

"Idiots are really one hundred per cent when they are also intelligent."

"I am a humble artist moulding my earthly clod, adding my labour to nature's, simply assisting God. Not that my labour is needed, yet somehow I understand, my Maker has deemed it that I too should have Unmoulded clay in my hand."

"Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, and you're hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, is simply by spinning a penny. No — not so that chance shall decide the affair while you're passively standing there moping; but the moment the penny is up in the air, you suddenly know what you're hoping"

"Co-existence or no existence."

"The noble art of losing face may some day save the human race and turn into eternal merit what weaker minds would call disgrace."

"Those who always know what’s best are a universal pest."

"A bit beyond perception's reach I sometimes believe I see that Life is two locked boxes, each containing the other's key."

"Foes of what's cooking see no worth behind it. Those that are looking for nothing — will find it."

"if you possess more than just eight things then y o u are possessed by t h e m"

"Giving in is no defeat. Passing on is no retreat. Selves are made to rise above. You shall live in what you love."

"Love while you've got love to give. Live while you've got life to live."

"We shall have to evolve problem-solvers galore — since each problem they solve creates ten problems more."

"Men, said the Devil, are good to their brothers: they don’t want to mend their own ways, but each other's."

"The human spirit sublimates the impulses it thwarts; a healthy sex life mitigates the lust for other sports."

"Experts have their expert fun ex cathedra telling one just how nothing can be done."

"Shun advice at any price - that's what I call good advice."

"True wisdom knows it must comprise some nonsense as a compromise, lest fools should fail to find it wise."

"To be and not to be, that is the answer."

"After all, what is art? Art is the creative process and it goes through all fields. Einstein’s theory of relativity — now that is a work of art! Einstein was more of an artist in physics than on his violin. Art is this: art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved."

"Man is the animal that draws lines which he himself then stumbles over. In the whole pattern of civilization there have been two tendencies, one toward straight lines and rectangular patterns and one toward circular lines. There are reasons, mechanical and psychological, for both tendencies. Things made with straight lines fit well together and save space. And we can move easily — physically or mentally — around things made with round lines. But we are in a straitjacket, having to accept one or the other, when often some intermediate form would be better."

"Losing one glove is certainly painful, but nothing compared to the pain, of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again."

"There is one art, no more, no less: to do all things with art- lessness."

"Living is a thing you do now or never — which do you?"

"As eternity is reckoned there's a lifetime in a second."

"Love is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable."

"Naive you are if you believe life favours those who aren't naive."

"Somebody said that Reason was dead. Reason said: No, I think not so."

"People are self-centered to a nauseous degree. They will keep on about themselves while I'm explaining me."

"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back."

"Put up in a place where it's easy to see the cryptic admonishmentT.T.T.When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it's well to remember that Things Take Time."

"The road to wisdom? — Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again but less and less and less."

"The way to grow grand is not: to demand. In life's every field you are what you yield."

"Wisdom is the booby prize given when you've been unwise."

"Freedom means you're free to do just whatever pleases you; — if, of course that is to say, what you please is what you may."

"The universe may be as great as they say. But it wouldn't be missed if it didn't exist."

"I think many would enjoy and savor the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen much better as adults. I recommend the miraculous translations by Tiina Nunnally."

"At rejse er at leve."

"I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen; only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow." "How very terrible,” cried the princess; "is he locked up?" "Oh yes, certainly; for I fear he will never recover." "Poor shadow!" said the princess; "it is very unfortunate for him; it would really be a good deed to free him from his frail existence; and, indeed, when I think how often people take the part of the lower class against the higher, in these days, it would be policy to put him out of the way quietly."

"I can give her no greater power than she has already," said the woman; "don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her."

"He felt himself melting away, but he still remained firm with his gun on his shoulder. Suddenly the door of the room flew open and the draught of air caught up the little dancer, she fluttered like a sylph right into the stove by the side of the tin soldier, and was instantly in flames and was gone. The tin soldier melted down into a lump, and the next morning, when the maid servant took the ashes out of the stove, she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the little dancer nothing remained but the tinsel rose, which was burnt black as a cinder."

"Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken."

"I have now learnt to despise you," he said. "You refused an honest prince; you did not appreciate the rose and the nightingale; but you did not mind kissing a swineherd for his toys; you have no one but yourself to blame!"

"When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower."

"She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God."