Isak Dinesen Quotes

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

~ Isak Dinesen

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 existence of Professor Landgreen?

~ Isak Dinesen

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 differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes, who deny tragedy, who will not tolerate it, and to whom the word of tragedy means in itself unpleasantness.

~ Isak Dinesen

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

~ Isak Dinesen

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....

~ Isak Dinesen

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

~ Isak Dinesen

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.

~ Isak Dinesen

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

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

~ Isak Dinesen