Quotessence
Home / Authors / Isak Dinesen
Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleWorldWayKnowsThinkingStoriesLongMindMen

Famous Isak Dinesen Quotes

“I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.”

IfsKnowsWorldRememberOrderGirlKnowingMysterySittingEmptyTalesShipsMy TimeCharmingSailingTorchesBarrelsPowderMystery Of LifeMutiny
Author:Isak Dinesen
Create image

“It is not the visions but the activity which makes you happy, and the joy and glory of the flier is the flight itself. . . Every time I have gone up in an aeroplane and looked down have realized I was free of the ground, I have had the consciousness of a new discovery. "I see:" I have thought, "This was the idea. And now I understand everything."”

IdeasJoyConsciousnessVisionGoneActivityGloryDiscoveryFlightAviationMake You HappyAeroplanesNew Discoveries
Book:Out of Africa
Create image

“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.”

LittlesLongNightSidesAirTreeWindColdMountainTiredInvisibleGrassWetScentLungsHerbsDrippingOxenCicadasLong Grass
Book:Out of Africa
Create image

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

WaterSeaTearsHard WorkHealthyOceanEncouragementWaveCuresBoatBeachSweatSaltSailingFamous WomenDrinking WaterNauticalDrink WaterSweatingSailing And The SeaNew WordsOcean SeaWater ResourcesSweat And TearsOceans And SeasMaritimeSailors And The SeaBeach And OceanBeach OceanSea WaterGrain Of SaltWater Is LifeOcean WaveSalt WaterSea And BeachOcean WaterCool BeachTears And CryingGoing To The BeachCool WaterEndless SeaSea BreezeSea PowerOcean Currents
Author:Isak Dinesen
Create image

“It is when one begins to lose the consciousness of freedom, and when the idea of necessity enters the world at all, when there is any hurry or strain anywhere, a letter to be written or a train to catch, when you have got to work, to make the horses of the dream gallop, or to make the rifles go off, that the dream is declining, and turning into the nightmare, which belongs to the poorest and most vulgar class of dreams.”

WorldIdeasDreamLosesConsciousnessClassWrittenLettersHorseTrainNightmareVulgarStrainPoorestRifles
Book:Out of Africa
Create image

“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.”

IfsFeelsNightFallNextForgetViewsHalfAliveTreeSorrowGratitudePleaseRiversDrunkBottlesCampsChampagneHeartfeltSafariHeartfelt Gratitude
Author:Isak Dinesen
Create image

“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.”

PeopleKnowsWorldHeartKindRealDreamLyingArtistNightSleepSpecialGloryTongueAtmosphereEaseEcstasyHoneyDictatorUnlimitedPlacid
Book:Out of Africa
Create image

“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?”

ThinkingMenWorldWarEyeRunningYoungBoysDogProudDrinkWeakMachinesHorseBlindTerrorDelightComplicatedFatsExcellentOld ManSkinnyHornsPuppyWhat Is LifeWeak ManRhinosWar HorseSucculents
Author:Isak Dinesen
Create image

“Humanity has made a great error in seizing on a certain moment, no more intrinsically notable than any other moment and has called it Birth. The habit of honoring one single instant of the universal process to the disadvantage of other instants has done more, perhaps, than anything to obfuscate the crystal clearness of the fundamental flux.”

MadeDoneMomentsCertainHumanityProcessBirthHabitBalanceUniversalFundamentalsErrorsInstantCrystalsNotableDisadvantagesFluxSeizingClearness
Author:Isak Dinesen
Create image