Quotes from Mysteries

“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“There are some people who cannot help giving. Why? Because they experience a real psychological pleasure in doing so. They don't do it with an eye to their own advantage, they do it on the quiet; they detest doing it openly because that would take away some of the satisfaction. They do it in secret, with quick trembling hands, their breasts rocked by a spiritual well being which they do not themselves understand.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Do you know what constitutes a great poet? He is a person without shame, incapable of blushing. Ordinary fools have moments when they go off by themselves and blush with shame; not so the great poet.... If you really have to quote someone, quote a geographer; that way you won't give yourself away. (p 44)”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“But now the world breaks in on us, the world is shocked, the world looks upon our idyll as madness. The world maintains that no rational man or woman would have chosen this way of life - therefore, it is madness. Alone I confront them and tell them that nothing could be saner or truer! What do people really know about life? We fall in line, follow the pattern established by our mentors. Everything is based on assumptions; even time, space, motion, matter are nothing but supposition. The world has no new knowledge to impart; it merely accepts what is there.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“I have no respect to merchants and preachers; as far as I’m concerned, their only talent is coming up with the right word at the right time. What is a professional preacher, really? He is a kind of middleman who for the wrong reasons tries to make people buy his goods. The more he sells, the more his stock rises. The louder he hawks his wares, the larger his business grows.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“What does the world know? Nothing! You simply get used to something, you accept it and acknowledge it, because your teacher has acknowledged it before you; everything is just a supposition—indeed, even time, space, motion, matter are suppositions. The world knows nothing, it merely accepts things…”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Genius in the popular sense has become common. (...) Rather than admire the mediocre great men over whom passersby nudge each other in awe, I venerate the young, unknown geniuses who die in their teens, their souls shattered - delicate, phosphorescent glowworms that one must see to know they really did exist.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“What would it profit us, after all, even from a purely practical viewpoint, if we stripped life of all poetry, all dreams, all beautiful mysteries, all lies? What is truth, can you tell me that? You see, we only advanced by way of symbols, and we change the symbols as we progress.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“To me, it seems unspeakably shabby to make a fuss over charity. You're walking along the street one day, the weather is so and so and you see such and such people, all of which builds up a certain mood in you. Suddenly you catch sight of a face, a child's face, a beggar's face----let's say a beggar's face---which makes you tremble. A strange sensation vibrates through your soul, and you stamp your foot and come to a halt. This face has struck an exceptionally sensitive chord in you, and you lure the beggar into an entranceway and press a ten-krone bill into his hand. If you give me away by as much as a world, I'll kill you! you whisper, and you fairly grind your teeth and shed tears of anger saying it. That's how important it is to you to remain undiscovered. And this can happen repeatedly, day after day, so that often you end up in the worst kind of scrape yourself, without a penny in your pocket...”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“If I happened to find a diamond one day, I would call it Dagny, because the very sound of your name thrills me. I only wish that I could forever hear your name, hear it spoken by all men and beasts, by every mountain and every star. I wish I were deaf to every sound except your name ringing in my ears day and night for the rest of my life.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“-რას არ ჩაიდენს კაცი! თქვენდამი სიყვარულის გამო ზურგს უკან გაგჭორეთ კიდეც და კეკლუცი გიწოდეთ. შევეცადე, რამენაირად დამემდაბლებინეთ და ამგვარად საკუთარი თავი მენუგეშებინა, რათა გული საბოლოოდ არ გამტეხოდა. მშვენივრად ვიცი, რომ ჩემთვის მიუწვდომელი ქალი ხართ. აგერ უკვე მეხუთედ გხედავთ, მაგრამ გული მხოლოდ დღეს გადაგიშალეთ, თუმცა ამის გაკეთება პირველივე დღეს შემეძლო. გარდა ამისა, დღეს დაბადების დღე მაქვს, ოცდაცხრა წლის შევსრულდი და დილიდანვე მშვენიერ გუნებაზე ვარ. მთელი დღეა ვღიღინებ. ჰოდა, რატომღაც ვიფიქრე... კაცს რომ ასეთი სისულელეების სჯერა, ბუნებრივია, სასაცილოა, მაგრამ რატომღაც საკუთარ თავს მაინც ვუთხარი: დღეს მას თუ შეხვდები, ყველაფერი უნდა აუხსნა და სიმართლეში გამოუტყდე. ბევრი არაფერი დაშავდება, რაც უნდა იყოს, დღეს ხომ დაბადების დღე გაქვს. ესეც შეგიძლია უთხრა და იქნებ მაშინ მაინც გაპატიოს-მეთქი. გეცინებათ, არა? დიახ, ვიცი რომ მართლა სასაცილოა. მაგრამ ახლა საქმეს ვეღარაფრით ვუშველი. ასე რომ, მზად ვარ, ხარკი სხვა დანარჩენებივით მეც შემოგწიროთ.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“God help me, how Tolstoy sweats over drying up people's sources of life, of wild and joyful life, drying them up and making the world fat with the love of God and everyman. ... But the man is old, after all, his fountains of life run dry, without a trace remaining of human affections. ... Only someone who has become slow and watertight with old age, satiated and hardened with pleasure, will go to youth and say, Renounce! ... And yet the youth renounces nothing, but sins royally for forty years. Such is the course of nature!”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“No, I don't admire the genius. But I admire and love the result of the genius's activity in the world, of which the great man is only the poor necessary tool, only, so to speak, the paltry awl to bore with.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Great men are excellent topics of conversation, but the superior man, the superior men, the masters, the universal spirits on horseback, have to stop and search their memories merely to know who these so-called great men might be. And so the great man is left with the crowd, the worthless majority...for his admirers.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“What power that girl wielded, though there was nothing striking or unusual about her - unless one considered her long braid and her common sense!”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“What if one were up there, drifting about among suns and feeling the tails of comets fan one's forehead! How small the earth was and how puny the people; a Norway of two million provincial souls and a mortgage bank to help feed them! What was life worth at such a rate? You elbowed yourself ahead in the sweat of your face for a few mortal years, only to perish all the same, all the same!”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“İnsanlık sen ne eşeksin! İsteyen seni istediği yere güder.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“My heart understands all, and it no longer beats, it peals.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Ja, han var gal, han var gal. Det måtte han være; for Sara bydde ham kaffe, mælk, te, bydde ham øl, bydde ham alt hun visste, men han reiste sig allikevel fra frokostbordet straks efter han hadde sat sig og lot maten stå.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Hvorfor blander jeg mig i andres affærer? Hvorfor er jeg overhodet kommet hit til byen? Skete det på grund av en eller annen katastrofe i universet, for eksempel på grund av Gladstones forkjølelse? Hehehe, Gud hjælpe dig, barn, hvis du sier som sandt er: at du egentlig var på veien hjem, men at du med ett blev så levende bevæget ved synet av denne by – så liten og elendig som den er – at du var nær ved å gråte av en hemmelighetsfuld og fremmed glæde da du så alle flagene.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Den store dikter avstedkommer en sammenknepen mund i sit ansigt, strammer sit fuglebryst ut til det ytterste og frembringer følgende ord: Å dikte er å holde dommedag over sig selv.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Og naar hun kommer, forstaar mit Hjerte alt, og det slaar ikke længer, det klemter.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Гласът е опасен апарат. Разберете ме правилно: нямам предвид материалното звучене на гласа, който може да бъде висок или нисък, звънлив или приглушен, имам предвид не тембъра, не тоналната му характеристика, не, аз търся и усещам мистерията зад него, света, който го поражда… Дявол го взел впрочем онзи свят зад него! Все трябва да има един скрит свят!”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

“Mit blods røst sier mig at den er størst som har tilført tilværelsen mest grunnværdi, mest positiv profit. Den store terrorist er størst, dimensionen, den uhørte donkraft som veier kloder op.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Mysteries

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Popular quotes

“Always remember, John, that you and I live on a minor planet attached to a minor star, at the far edge of a minor galaxy. We live here briefly, and when we’re gone, we’re forgotten. And one day the galaxies will be gone, too. The only morality that makes sense is to do something useful with the brief time we’re allotted.”
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“I thought that a man might be an enemy of other men, of the differing moments of other men, but never an enemy of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams, or the West wind.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, quote from The Garden of Forking Paths

“There was a time,” he said softly, “when I thought I’d found some kind of answer. God, we go through life fooling ourselves, thinking we’ve got the answer, only it’s never the answer really. I thought that being without Maudie would mean something to us. And it did, just for a while. It brought us together. I even stopped drinking. I broke down. I said to hell with this other kind of life. I thought there’s something to be said for honor in this world where there doesn’t seem to be any honor left. I thought that maybe happiness wasn’t really anything more than the knowledge of a life well spent, in spite of whatever immediate discomfort you had to undergo, and that if a life well spent meant compromises and conciliations and reconciliations, and suffering at the hands of the person you love, well then better that than live without honor.”
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“For surely a king is first a man. And so it must follow that a king does as all men do: the best he can.”
― Cameron Dokey, quote from The Storyteller's Daughter: A Retelling of the Arabian Nights

“Satan rose to his feet and stood massive and malevolent, his head almost lost in the reeking clouds. Behind him, the floor shivered and shattered as his generals, princes and barons rose behind him: Balberith, Beelzebub and Carreau; Melmoroth, Shakarl and Mr Runcible; Olivier, Leviathan and Yog-Sothoth who just happened to be there because he couldn’t help it.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, quote from Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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