Quotes by Icelandic Authors - Page 2

Asta Sollilja slept on, her head in the corner, mouth open, chin up, and head back, with one hand under her ear and the other half-open on the coverlet as if she thought in her sleep that someone would come and lay happiness in her palm.
Halldór Laxness
I like the moment when I break a man's ego
Bobby Fischer
Bardur and the boy had leaned back a bit and looked at the sparkling sky that makes us humble and powerful at once and seems sometimes to speak to us. What is says carefully cleanses old wounds.
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
You are here and you can’t escape it. Thoughts about why you came to be here and a poor-me mentality will not help you to resolve the situation. You cannot avoid being here now, in this present moment, in this unfortunate predicament. Your choices, lack of choices, or accidental events, have led you to this moment. That cannot be changed no matter how much you think about it. The only things that can be changed in this present moment are your thoughts and actions right now. Take a deep breath and totally accept this moment.
Gudjon Bergmann
I'm self-sufficient. I spend a lot of time on my own and I shut off quite easily. When I communicate, I communicate 900 per cent, then I shut off, which scares people sometimes.
Björk
I think that home shouldn't be a place you need to leave if you want to experience something in consonance with your innermost being. Home should be a place of experimentation and discovery, a place of peace and quiet where the most natural in each individual can be developed in fine-tuning to the desires and searches of others.
Oddný Eir
Oh yes", said the old woman, "but I've heard these so-called stoves are by no means all they are supposed to be. I never saw a stove in my day, and yet never ailed a thing, at least as long as I could really be called alive, except for nettle rash one night when I was in my fifteenth year.. It was caused by some fresh fish that the boys used to catch in the lakes thereabouts." The man did not answer for a while, but lay pondering the medical history of this incredible old creature who, without ever setting eyes on a stove, had suffered almost no ailments in the past sixty-five years.
Halldór Laxness
Life after 35 should be lit by the flames of passion. Extinguish the fire that burns the candle of your life at both ends.
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
There’s no doubt that your genes contain very important information, but 65% of the influence can be attributed to the environment and your lifestyle – they determine whether your unfortunate genes come to expression. Hello! That’s a bit of a wake-up call, isn’t it?
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
Destructive thoughts prevent your body from collaborating with your deepest wishes and needs. Sabotage has never been the road to success.
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
You can actually eat yourself into a better mood and get rid of depressive thoughts and melancholy.
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
Over time, a noisy lifestyle and stress make you old. The stress, noise and rush that often accompany working life, family life and social life can be too much for your nervous system and brain, which also need rest and cleansing.
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
Words are like food. They contain information that either releases and liberates and creates possibilities and development or locks you into unhealthy patterns you can’t change.
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
Walk into any church, and you will see people swimming in a sea of emotions (everything from shame and guilt to love and ecstasy). That may be the reason some people think that the more emotional they are, the more spiritual they are. But, as we will explore later in the book, undiluted spirituality has little to do with emotions, and what little it does have has more to do with emotional growth than feelings of elation.
Gudjon Bergmann
We are known to be anti-authoritarian, anti-institutional, and notoriously anti-religious—more likely to quote Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Monty Python, or Star Trek than the Bible.
Gudjon Bergmann
Natural, organic and unrefined foods speak a language your genes understand. And when your food communicates nicely with your genes, they’ll express themselves properly and healthily so you can begin feeling that you’re actually living and not just surviving.
Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir
Being a good parent is not an obligation, it is a choice. Plenty of people fall short in the parent category and quite a few refuse to accept it. You will do a much better job if you understand that taking care of your children is a choice not an obligation.
Gudjon Bergmann
Man is more perfect than god. Although this woman's doctrine, in which she was brought up from childhood, told her than all men were lost sinners, I have never heard her censure a man with so much as half a word. All her life is symbolized in the only words which she knows in her dotage. Please do; and, God bless you.
Halldór Laxness
Fear and anger, the two emotions that most people came to him to reduce—emotions that he’d worked so hard to overcome in his own life—were fuel for politicians. Maybe candidates and congressmen thought that sowing discord among countrymen, even family members, was an unfortunate type of collateral damage. Maybe they didn’t think about it at all.
Gudjon Bergmann
Often I felt that these men were play-acting: the unreality of their role was their security, even their own destinies were to them saga and folk-tale rather than a private matter; these were men under a spell, men who had been turned into birds or even more likely into some strange beast, and who bore their magic shapes with the same unflurried equanimity, magnanimity, and dignity that we children had marvelled at the beasts of fairy tale. Did they not suspect, moreover, with the wordless apprehension of animals, that if their magic shapes were to be stripped from them the fairy tale would be at an end and their security gone, too, while real life would begin with all it's problems, perhaps in some town where there was neither nature or mirage, no link with the folk-tale and the past, no ancient path to the far side of the mountains and down to the river gullies and out beyond the grass plains, no landmarks from the Sagas? - Only a restless search for sterile, deadening enjoyment.
Halldór Laxness
I always dream of it: that something will open my eyes, and open everything inside me as well.
Oddný Eir
He impressed people. Unconsciously. Some people are like that. I'm not. There's something in those people that breaks down all the barriers, because they act completely the way they are, have nothing to hide, never shelter behind anything, are just themselves, straightforward.
Arnaldur Indriðason
He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.
Arnaldur Indriðason
Nothing eases suffering like human touch.
Bobby Fischer
Short term goals are often based on dissatisfaction, and actions based on dissatisfaction will eventually lead to a life of unhappiness.
Gudjon Bergmann
While having information is a crucial first step, more information isn´t necessarily better. Take a look at your bookshelves and the list of seminars you have attended. If you have read more than one book about a subject or attended more than one seminar but still haven’t reached your goals, then your problem is not lack of information but rather lack of implementation.
Gudjon Bergmann
Embrace everything you put your hearts on... for you will surly achieve it
Runa Magnus
You've already got everything you need to succeed right in-front of your tits
Runa Magnus
Gandhi is an example of a man who grew from being self-centered as he was learning to become a lawyer in England, to becoming more family- and social oriented in South-Africa, where he led a reformation of Indian rights, to becoming determined in helping his nation recover from British rule at which he succeeded in the end with the help of a great many people. At the end of his life Gandhi was increasingly focused on a larger picture, encasing the whole world in his vision of a peaceful future.
Gudjon Bergmann
Breaking away from old psychological memes requires a Herculean effort in many cases. In essence, we are outgrowing a worldview while maintaining a relation-ship of sorts. Transcending an ideology can feel like going through a divorce and having to stay friends because of the kids.
Gudjon Bergmann
Growth seems to evolve from a narrow-minded, constricted worldview (selfish) to an ever-more-encompassing worldview (multiperspective caring). To put it simply, the more self-centered you are, the lower you tend to land on these scales, while the more perspectives you can entertain—the more empathy you can show and the better your ability to see things from a variety of viewpoints—the higher you land on these scales.
Gudjon Bergmann
Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes.
Halldór Laxness
I know perfectly well that it is impossible, according to arithmetic and scholarly books, to live in a far valley off a handful of ewes and two low yield cows. But we live, I say. You children all lived; your sisters now have sturdy children in far-off districts. And what you are now carrying under your heart will also live and be welcome, little one, despite arithmetic and scholarly books.
Halldór Laxness
For once the crofter was at a a rather loss for words, for to him nothing has ever been more completely unintelligible than the reasoning that is bred of tears.
Halldór Laxness
Many people close themselves off from the world when they are under pressure. That is understandable. I have gone through periods when I didn’t want to meet people because I didn’t feel good about my situation in life and that made my life even more stressful. Remind yourself often about how much of an impact compassion and friendship can have on your life. You need to get out there, be compassionate and share your time and your life with your friends and other people that need your support. It’s worth it on every level.
Gudjon Bergmann
You can tend to a garden every day for 20, 30 or 40 years. But if one day you stop giving it loving attention and care it will rapidly deteriorate. Weeds will start to grow, and in a relatively short period of time the garden will become a jungle. On the other hand, it is much easier to turn things around and start cultivating the garden again if it has flourished in the past. The same is true with the human mind and respectively the actions we take every day. If we cultivate our life with dedication, positive thinking, and consistent actions, it will be much easier to turn away from destructive behavior, however far we stray away from our original course.
Gudjon Bergmann
He disliked tears, he has always disliked tears, had never understood them, and sometimes lost his temper over them; but he felt now that he could not rebuke this flower of his life, this innocent form, water and youth are inseparable companions, and besides it's Christmas night. So he merely hinted again that she must have forgotten again that he had promised to build her a house.
Halldór Laxness
When a man has a flower in his life he builds a house.
Halldór Laxness
Can't we make a blusterer ourselves? asked Jón Hreggviðsson. Can't we scratch that damned sign with the ax-point onto the chopping block and get a beautiful, chubby woman in here tonight, right now-or preferably three? It was no easy matter to create such a sign, because in order to do so the two men required much greater access to the animal kingdom and the forces of nature than conditions in the dungeon permitted. The sign of the Blusterer is inscribed with a raven's gall on the rust-brown inner side of a bitch's skin, and afterward blood is sprinkled over the skin - blood from a black tomcat whose neck has been cut under a full moon by an unspoiled maiden. Where'd you find an unspoiled maiden to cut a black tomcat's neck asked Jón Hreggviðsson.
Halldór Laxness
I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of
Hallgrímur Helgason
After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal.I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines.Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of the world. But their wallets always waited cold sober in the cloakroom while the Icelandic purse lay open for all in the middle of the table. Our men were the greater Vikings in this regard. “Reputation is king, the rest is crap!” my Bæring from Bolungarvík used to say. Every evening had to be legendary, anything else was a defeat. But the morning after they turned into weak-willed doughboys.But all the same I did succeed in loving them, those Icelandic clodhoppers, at least down as far as their knees. Below there, things did not go as well. And when the feet of Jón Pre-Jón popped out of me in the maternity ward, it was enough. The resemblances were small and exact: Jón’s feet in bonsai form. I instantly acquired a physical intolerance for the father, and forbade him to come in and see the baby. All I heard was the note of surprise in the bass voice out in the corridor when the midwife told him she had ordered him a taxi. From that day on I made it a rule: I sacked my men by calling a car.‘The taxi is here,’ became my favourite sentence.
Hallgrímur Helgason
Life is not about what happened yesterday nor what will happen tomorrow,it's about this particular moment!
Runa Magnus
Letting go of the past does not mean that we should try to forget everything that has happened to us and not learn anything from our previous thinking patterns and actions. Letting go simply means that we do not allow the past to control our current thoughts and actions.
Gudjon Bergmann
Forgiveness is probably the most important self-esteem building process anyone can undertake. Forgiveness is an internal response to the fact that we cannot, under any circumstances, change the past. The only things we can change are our thoughts about the past. Forgiveness happens when we stop wishing for a better past and understand that we are carrying hatred, anger and resentment within us.
Gudjon Bergmann
Many people say that time heals all wounds, but that simply is not true. People can become more bitter, arrogant and spiteful with age.
Gudjon Bergmann
The only thing that seems to differ between the major schools of meditation is the point of concentration. Some traditions use mantras, others follow the breath, some have their eyes open, others have their eyes closed, some use simple words, others use prayers and the list can go on. Despite extravagant claims to the contrary, modern research has found no significant difference between the points of concentration at the beginning stages of meditation, which means it doesn’t really matter which mantra, word or phrase you choose to begin with. The main thing is to practice whatever meditation method that you have chosen; sit still and let the mind settle.
Gudjon Bergmann
The building blocks of meditation are relaxation and concentration. If you cannot relax, you cannot meditate. If you cannot concentrate, you cannot meditate. No exceptions.
Gudjon Bergmann
Concentration is… a relaxed mental state, where the stream of consciousness flows in a single direction, either focusing on a phrase or mental picture, or alternately, a state in which the mind is alert and aware.
Gudjon Bergmann
Meditation is… a state that can best be described as deep dreamless sleep while awake.
Gudjon Bergmann
You see, meditation is not a fabricated state. It is natural. It is accessible to all. And in the same way that a person who learns how to run, can run any time they want to, or, a person who knows how to play an instrument can play music at will, once you learn how to meditate, you can create your moments of peace at will.
Gudjon Bergmann
Whether one is remaining alert (mindfulness), focusing on a single thought or phrase (mantra), or mentally exploring ones inner world (visualization), all are one form of concentration or another.
Gudjon Bergmann
Relaxation is… a state between waking and sleeping, where the body is completely still and the mind is allowed to flow freely from one thought to another, or alternately, a state in which the mind becomes inadvertently calm.
Gudjon Bergmann
If you stick with the definition of spirituality as a peaceful internal state (a.k.a. deep, dreamless sleep while awake), then you will ignore some of the hallucinatory experiences that are bound to happen when you sit in silence (studies have shown that, in such circumstances, the mind often creates elaborate experiences and stories that are reminiscent of dreams) and refrain from interpreting them as something otherworldly.
Gudjon Bergmann
Simplicity is everywhere in nature, and meditation is a natural state. Meditation is a state of peaceful equilibrium, the fourth state of consciousness, and is always available to every single human being.
Gudjon Bergmann
We all want results and we want them fast. But, when practicing meditation, impatience is a hindrance.
Gudjon Bergmann
Imagine a time before you had ever had chocolate. Going to lectures about chocolate would have been interesting. Reading about chocolate might have increased your appetite. But only tasting chocolate would have really made you understand how good chocolate can be. Only tasting— only experience.
Gudjon Bergmann
The moments of peace in between the mental practices are meditation.
Gudjon Bergmann
Concentration is the doorway through which the meditative state becomes available.
Gudjon Bergmann
Meditation is an interesting practice. It is so simple that anyone can learn how to do it. You sit still, relax, concentrate, gently struggle with the mind, and create moments of peace. That’s it. I have revealed my trade secret. Of course there is a little more to it, but not much. However, that doesn’t mean that meditation is easy. By comparison, swimming is also simple, yet, it takes years of practice to become good at swimming, especially if you want to swim at sea. Running is even simpler. Nonetheless, we all know that in order to become a good runner, practice is imperative. And for both you need coaches. The same is true about meditation. Simple is not the same as easy.
Gudjon Bergmann
Although the repetition of a word or phrase is a preparatory practice and is itself not meditation, choosing a word or phrase that honors your belief system can be the linchpin you need for your mediation practice, providing both motivation and philosophical coherency.
Gudjon Bergmann