Isak Dinesen Quotes

Quotes about:

• You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.

  Isak Dinesen

  Wise, Past, Worry

  89 Copy quote

• The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.

  Isak Dinesen

  Beach, Encouragement, Ocean

  167 Copy quote

• Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.

  Isak Dinesen

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  74 Copy quote

• God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.

  Isak Dinesen

  World, Able, Live In The Present

  As quoted in obituaries, September 7, 1962.

  48 Copy quote

• When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.

  Isak Dinesen

  Encouraging, Perseverance, Time

  41 Copy quote

• I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.

  Isak Dinesen

  Suffering, Stories, Bearable

  Interview with Bent Mohn in The New York Times Book Review, November 3, 1957.

  25 Copy quote

• People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will.

  Isak Dinesen

  Dream, Real, Lying

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

  4 Copy quote

• Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.

  Isak Dinesen

  Morning, Heart, Air

  Isak Dinesen (1952). “Out of Africa, with an introduction by Bernardine Kielty”

  9 Copy quote

• I have been trying for a long time to understand God. Now I have made friends with him. To love him truly you must love change, and you must love a joke, these being the true inclinations of his own heart.

  Isak Dinesen

  Heart, Long, Trying

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.355, Vintage

  29 Copy quote

• Here I am, where I am supposed to be.

  Isak Dinesen

  Here I Am, Supposed To Be

  23 Copy quote

• What is it which is bought dearly, offered for nothing, and then most often refused?--Experience, old people's experience.

  Isak Dinesen

  People, Experience, Old People

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.115, Vintage

  29 Copy quote

• To be a person is to have a story to tell.

  Isak Dinesen

  Stories, Public Speaking, Storytelling

  13 Copy quote

• "Do you know a cure for me?" Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water." Salt water?" I asked him. Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea".

  Isak Dinesen

  Sea, Sweat, Water

  "The Deluge at Norderney" by Isak Dinesen, 1934.

  26 Copy quote

• Nobody has seen the trekking birds take their way towards such warmer spheres as do not exist, or rivers break their course through rocks and plains to run into an ocean which is not to be found. For God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.

  Isak Dinesen

  Running, Ocean, Blessed

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard”, p.10, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.

  Isak Dinesen

  Writing, Despair, Littles

  9 Copy quote

• If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?

  Isak Dinesen

  Song, Children, Lying

  "Fictional character: Karen Blixen". "Out of Africa", www.imdb.com. 1985.

  25 Copy quote

• I had seen a herd of Elephant travelling through dense native forest ... pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world.

  Isak Dinesen

  Elephants, End Of The World, Forests

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  5 Copy quote

• Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the Word of the Lord is to the soul.

  Isak Dinesen

  Coffee, Soul, Body

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.245, Vintage

  33 Copy quote

• When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music.

  Isak Dinesen

  Caught, Rhythm

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  4 Copy quote

• There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne — bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.

  Isak Dinesen

  Gratitude, Drunk, Heartfelt

  53 Copy quote

• Be not afraid of absurdity; do not shrink from the fantastic. Within a dilemma, choose the most unheard-of, the most dangerous solution. Be brave, be brave.

  Isak Dinesen

  Brave, Fantastic, Dangerous

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.55, Vintage

  27 Copy quote

• Real art must always involve some witchcraft.

  Isak Dinesen

  Art, Real, Witchcraft

  "Letters from Africa: 1914-1931". Book edited by Frans Lasson translated by Anne Born, 1981.

  6 Copy quote

• It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.

  Isak Dinesen

  Loneliness, Farewell, Men

  24 Copy quote

• What is life when you come to think upon it, but a most excellent, accurately set, infinitely complicated machine for turning fat playful puppies into old mangy blind dogs, and proud war horses into skinny nags, and succulent young boys, to whom the world holds great delights and terrors, into old weak men, with running eyes, who drink ground rhino-horn?

  Isak Dinesen

  Running, Dog, Horse

  22 Copy quote

• The real difference between God and human beings is that God cannot stand continence. No sooner has he created a season of a year, or a time of day, than he wishes for something quite different and sweeps it all away. And human beings cleave to the existing state of things. All their lives they are striving to hold the moment fast, and are up against a force majeure. Their art itself is nothing but the attempt to catch by all means the one particular moment, one mood, one light, the momentary beauty of one woman or one flower, and make it everlasting.

  Isak Dinesen

  Art, Real, Flower

  6 Copy quote

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