Quotes by Isak Dinesen

“It is an alarming experience to be, in your person, representing Christianity to the natives.”

“After being told that the Professor found it possible to believe for a moment in the existence of God, Isak thought, Has it been possible to God, at Mount Elgon, to believe for a moment in the exis...”

“The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key,the minor key,to existence. They diffe...”

“The cure for anything is salt water. Sweat, tears, or the ocean.”

“After a little while you became aware of how still it was out here. Now, looking back on my life in Africa, I feel like it might altogether be described as the existence of a person who had come fr...”

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

“I think these difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way that so many things that one goes around worrying about are of n...”

“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.”

“I don't think that ... one gets a flash of happiness once and never again it is there within you and it will come as certainly as death....”

“I don't think that... one gets a flash of happiness once and never again it is there within you and it will come as certainly as death.”

“In the mind and nature of a man a secret is an ugly thing like a hidden physical defect.”

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

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life and the Lord knows that they have not been few or little I think that I have been the biggest.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is an alarming experience to be, in your person, representing Christianity to the natives.”

“After being told that the Professor “found it possible to believe for a moment in the existence of God,” Isak thought, “Has it been possible to God, at Mount Elgon, to believe for a moment in the e...”

“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.”

“I don't think that ... one gets a flash of happiness once and never again it is there within you and it will come as certainly as death....”

“I don't think that... one gets a flash of happiness once and never again it is there within you and it will come as certainly as death.”