Isak Dinesen Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Love, with very young people, is a heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst, or to get drunk; it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine.

  Isak Dinesen

  Wine, Later In Life, People

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.83, Vintage

  30 Copy quote

• Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.

  Isak Dinesen

  Silence, Doe, Tales

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.105, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• The consolations of the vulgar are bitter in the royal ear. Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are. I have been told that lions, trapped and shut up in cages, grieve from shame more than from hunger.

  Isak Dinesen

  Grieving, People, House

  31 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.

  9 Copy quote

• Man reaches the highest point of lovableness at 12 to 17 - to get it back, in a second flowering, at the age of 70 to 90

  Isak Dinesen

  Teenage, Men, Flowering

  6 Copy quote

• I arrived at the conviction that we should, more easily and more thoroughly than we now do or ever have done, understand the nature and the laws of the Cosmos if we would from the beginning recognize its originator and upholder as being of the female sex.

  Isak Dinesen

  God, Sex, Law

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.67, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• One does not travel by plane. One is merely sent, like a parcel.

  Isak Dinesen

  Doe, Planes, Parcel

  4 Copy quote

• The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet, and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides the Cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me , and the air, the distant invisible mountains were me, the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn trees.

  Isak Dinesen

  Tired, Night, Long Grass

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

  17 Copy quote

• What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?

  Isak Dinesen

  Wine, Men, Thinking

  Seven Gothic Tales "The Dreamers" (1934)

  8 Copy quote

• There are many ways to the recognition of truth, and Burgundy is one of them.

  Isak Dinesen

  Wine, Way, Recognition

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.100, Vintage

  50 Copy quote

• The Cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. You are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts.

  Isak Dinesen

  Running, Song, Kings

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

  18 Copy quote

• It is when people are told their own thoughts that they think they are being insulted.

  Isak Dinesen

  Truth, Thinking, People

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard”, p.152, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• I think it will be truly glorious when women become real people and have the whole world open to them.

  Isak Dinesen

  Real, Thinking, People

  11 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. One only feels really free when one can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, to get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night.

  Isak Dinesen

  Gratitude, Fall, Night

  14 Copy quote

• There was a place in the Hills, on the first ridge in the Game Reserve, that I myself at the time when I thought that I was to live and die in Africa, had pointed out to Denys as my future burial-place. In the evening, while we sat and looked at the hills from my house, he remarked that then he would like to be buried there himself as well. Since then, sometimes when we drove out in the hills, Denys had said: "Let us drive as far as our graves.

  Isak Dinesen

  Games, House, Firsts

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

  8 Copy quote

• Your own self, your personality and existence are reflected within the mind of each of the people whom you meet, ... into a likeness, a caricature of yourself, which still lives on and appears to be, in some way, the truth about you. Even a flattering picture is... a lie.

  Isak Dinesen

  Lying, Self, People

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.166, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• One must in this lower world love many things to know finally what one loves the best.

  Isak Dinesen

  World Love, World, One Love

  6 Copy quote

• And were my faith so strong that it could move mountains, that is the mountain that I would make come to me.

  Isak Dinesen

  Strong, Moving, Mountain

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

  5 Copy quote

• All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Writing, Sorrow, Telling Stories

  6 Copy quote

• The divine art is the story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Art, Writing, Stories

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.28, Vintage

  5 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

  29 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

  7 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

  6 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

  55 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

  34 Copy quote

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