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Halldór Laxness
214 quotes
“The worth of any deed depends on how it is assessed by the onlookers . . . once you have made yourself look ridiculous, you go on being ridiculous whatever you do, perhaps for the rest of your life.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work on the one side, the home on the other—they were two walls in the one prison.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's you who are strange. Talking to you is like talking to someone who has no shadow.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Icelanders! You are the descendants of Nordic vikings! Down with Irish slaves!”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may well be that fighting is normal, like having something to eat. Peace, on the other hand, is a luxury.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is justice, not love, that will one day give life to the children of the future. The battle for justice is the one thing which gives human life rational meaning.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tonight when I listen to our voices in this strange calm which is touched with the presence of death, even though the breeze is rustling so innocently at the door and the roof, I feel as if we were two gods on the clouds of heaven, with mankind dying between us.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have fettered yourself of your own free will, man—break the fetters!”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My image will soon be obliterated; it was only an illusion. But even though I may fall, even though my image may be obliterated, there is one thing that will never fall and can never be obliterated, and that is the yearning of those in chains for liberty.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They thought I was an Icelander! But I'm no Icelander, s'help me!”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where the glacier meets the sky, the land ceases to be earthly, and the earth becomes one with the heavens; no sorrows live there anymore, and therefore joy is not necessary; beauty alone reigns there, beyond all demands.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can take everything from me except the freedom to look up at the sky occasionally.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Really," said the poet.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The God of the Jews was an absolute God, who believed in other gods himself, to be sure, but forbade me to obey them, contrary to our own beliefs in the North. We have many gods and obey them all, and they us, the god of the sea and the god of the land, the god of thunder and the god of poetry.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Icelanders were worthy of the name, it was considered an accepted duty to avenge with the sword the sort of crime you have committed against my family. It's a bitter thing to be living at a time when one may not challenge to single combat the man who has disgraced one's family, and carve a blood-eagle on his back!”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast. (Original to Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1734))”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've never had a grandmother, a great-grandmother, nor a great-great-grandmother. I never even had a mother. I have certainly missed a great deal of love thereby, but fortune has compensated me by not giving me the capacity to hate anyone, neither nations nor individuals. If candlesticks and church bells have been plundered from my ancestors, then I'm only grateful that I'm so ignorant about genealogy.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Icelanders never got anything in exchange from the Danes except hunger.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A married man has only one duty towards his wife in order to make her happy, and that is to ensure that she is constantly pregnant, and with a child in her arms.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The poet felt completely free now as he stood there on the deck in his collar and boots, sailing past new and ever newer districts; even if he did not own this land's resources, he owned its beauty.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once upon a time these two men had been in the same situation; now the difference between them was like the difference between a wish and its fulfillment. The one was what the other had dreamed of, and therefore they did not know one another anymore. He who has wishes yearns for a friend; but when the wishes have been fulfilled, the friends are the first thing we forget.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Was all human endeavor then, even the beautiful of the world, of so little consequence compared with murder?”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I have a face that rejoices in God's grace, my brother, it is because I have learned more from those who have lived within these [prison] walls than from those who live outside them. I have learned more from those who have fallen down than those who have remained upright.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Over us human beings there hangs an awful sword of justice.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ólafur Kárason had always kept to himself and did not interfere in other people's affairs; it sometimes also happened that he was not very familiar with his own affairs.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every transgression is a game, every grief easy to bear compared with having discovered beauty; it was at once the crime that could never be atoned and the hurt that could never be assuaged, the tear that could never be dried.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a child he stood by the seashore at Ljósavík and watched the waves soughing in and out, but now he was heading away from the sea. "Think of me when you are in glorious sunshine." Soon the sun of the day of resurrection will shine on the bright paths where she awaits her poet. And beauty shall reign alone.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was a time, it says in books, that the Icelandic people had only one national treasure: a bell . . . When the king decreed that the people of Iceland were to relinquish all of their brass and copper so that Copenhagen could be rebuilt following the war, men were sent to fetch the ancient bell at Þingvellir by Öxará.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These people, who have since antiqui possessed the most distinguished litteras in the northern part of the world, choose now to walk upon calfskin or to eat calfskin rather than to read the old words written upon calfskin.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's an honor to be beheaded. Even a little churl becomes a man by being beheaded.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The raven is the bird of all the gods. It was the bird of Odin and the bird of Jesus Christ. It will also be the bird of the god Skandilán, who has yet to be born. Whomever the raven rends attains salvation.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fire's hottest for the one who burns himself.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gold is precious because it resembles the sun. Silver has the light of the moon.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because there are indeed women in Iceland, it will now be proven to you, you ugly wench, that there are also men in Iceland!”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You Danes really are a sorry lot if you think that the day will dawn when you'll get hold of Snæfríður, Iceland's sun.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth displayed in a good life is the fairest of images.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was in Bessastaðir I had a jug of water—and an ax. A well-sharpened ax is a fine tool. On the other hand I've never been fond of the gallows, and never less than when I wrestled a hanged man.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've never known justice to be used for anything other than the taking of poor men's lives. That's why I'm begging you, since you know how to speak to great men, to protect Jón Hreggviðson from justice.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All creation complains and moans, my dear lord Commissarius. Complaint is its distinctive sound.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's both ludicrous and embarrassing to recall one's youth.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man's conscience is an unsteady judge of right and wrong.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If there's one thing I despise, it's brennivín . . . [T]here no longer exists within me a single spark of longing for brennivín.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When has human fortune ever been regarded as something better than a crime, or been enjoyed in any other way than in secret, directly contrary to the laws of God and man?”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dear Snæfríður, is it not clear to you how disastrous your words were, when you said just now that you do not fear the eye of God watching over you?”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A long time ago they brought me here eastward over the heath, along with one Jón Þeófílusson from the Westfjörds, who was burned after the devil testified against him. And I've got one thing to say about that: a ladies' man like him, who could sit up in the gables an entire night holding on to a Blusterer while his girl was in bed with another man, didn't deserve any better, and that's why I told him so many times in the black pit, 'You'll definitely be burned.'”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Icelanders are grateful to meet foreigners who have heard of their country. And even more grateful to hear someone say it deserves better.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a rule, the only way that anyone could escape from the castle of Bremerholm was through a dead-end opening: namely, the grave.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When's there ever been a decent saint who didn't start out as a thief?”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Over verdant lowlands cut by the deep streamwaters of the south hangs a peculiar gloom. Every eye is stifled by the clouds that block the sight of the sun, every voice is muffled like the chirps of fleeing birds, every quasi-movement sluggish. Children must not laugh, no attention must be drawn to the fact that a man exists, one must not provoke the powers with frivolity—do nothing but prowl along, furtively, lowly. Maybe the Godhead had not yet struck its final blow, an unexpiated sin might still fester somewhere, perhaps there still lurked worms that needed to be crushed.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Misdeeds that are repented no longer exist.”
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source