Quotes by Swedish Authors

This is a small town, so everyone talks. Ironic, isn't it—so few people, so many opinions?
Katarina Bivald
I am a misanthrope, but exceedingly benevolent; I am very cranky, and am a super-idealist. ... I can digest philosophy better than food.
Alfred Nobel
Punching a woman is like punching a one-year old black baby in the face
Sebastian Fors
You must not blame us scientists for the use which war technicians have put our discoveries.
Lise Meitner
She laughed and laughed and laughed until the vowels were rolling across the walls and floors, as if they meant to do away with the laws of time and space. It made Ove feel as if his chest was slowly rising out of the ruins of a collapsed house after an earthquake. It gave his heart space to beat again.
Fredrik Backman
Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
Swedish Proverb
A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.
Dag Hammarskjöld
The study of women's intelligence and personality has had broadly the same history as the one we record for Negroes ... in drawing a parallel between the position of and feeling toward women and Negroes we are uncovering a fundamental basis of our culture.
Gunnar Myrdal
A man who experiences no genuine satisfaction in life does not want peace. People court war to escape meaninglessness and boredom to be relieved of fear and frustration.
Nels F. S. Ferre
Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Time goes by: reputation increases ability declines.
Dag Hammarskjöld
The present moment is significant not as the bridge between past and future but by reason of its contents which can fill our emptiness and become ours if we are capable of receiving them
Dag Hammarskjöld
The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.
Swedish Proverb
The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for.
Liv Ullmann
I've never sought success in order to get fame and money it's the talent and the passion that count in success.
Ingrid Bergman
There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Fear less hope more eat less chew more whine less breathe more talk less say more love more and all good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb
Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small your vision which is muddied? You are the one who must grow up.
Dag Hammarskjöld
The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.
Swedish Proverb
I am learning that if I just go on accepting the framework for life that others have given me if I fail to make my own choices the reason for my life will be missing. I will be unable to recognize that which I have the power to change.
Liv Ullmann
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.
Axel Munthe
Be yourself. The world worships the original.
Ingrid Bergman
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope without friends without books even without music as long as he can listen to his own thoughts.
Axel Munthe
It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.
Dag Hammarskjöld
As both the Mercury and Apollo programs have shown our science and technology are so powerful that if an intense effort is made we can do almost anything we want in say ten years - provided we are not in conflict with the laws of nature.
Hannes Alfvin
Only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Dag Hammarskjöld
I never said "I want to be alone." I only said "I want to be left alone." There is all the difference.
Greta Garbo
Only one feat is possible: not to have run away.
Dag Hammarskjöld
There is no sinner in the world however much at enmity with God who cannot recover God's grace by recourse to Mary and by asking her assistance.
Saint Bridget of Sweden
My voice is still the same and this makes me beside myself with Joy! Oh mon Dieu when I think what I might be able to do with it!
Jenny Lind
Choice is the essence of what I believe it is to be human.
Liv Ullmann
One for whom the pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes.
Pär Lagerkvist
It's not worthy of human beings to give up.
Alva Reimer Myrdal
Only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Dag Hammarskjöld
I never said "I want to be alone." I only said "I want to be left alone." There is all the difference.
Greta Garbo
Only one feat is possible: not to have run away.
Dag Hammarskjöld
There is no sinner in the world however much at enmity with God who cannot recover God's grace by recourse to Mary and by asking her assistance.
Saint Bridget of Sweden
My voice is still the same and this makes me beside myself with Joy! Oh mon Dieu when I think what I might be able to do with it!
Jenny Lind
Choice is the essence of what I believe it is to be human.
Liv Ullmann
One for whom the pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes.
Pär Lagerkvist
It's not worthy of human beings to give up.
Alva Reimer Myrdal
There isn't much that tastes better than praise from those who are wise and capable.
Selma Lagerlöf
When a blind man carries the lame man both go forward.
Swedish Proverb
Love in its essence is spiritual fire.
Emmanuel Swedenborg
Life only demands from the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible - not to have run away.
Dag Hammarskjöld
You must train your intuition-you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say what to decide.
Ingrid Bergman
I make all my decisions on intuition. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
Ingmar Bergman
It is necessary to try to surpass one's self always this occupation ought to last as long as life.
Queen Christina
Let everyone who has the grace of intelligence fear that because of it he will be judged more heavily if he is negligent.
Saint Bridget of Sweden
Self-love and the love of the world constitute hell.
Emmanuel Swedenborg
The genius of happiness is still so rare is indeed on the whole the rarest genius. To possess it means to approach life with the humility of a beggar but to treat it with the proud generosity of a prince to bring to its totality the deep understanding of a great poet and to each of its moments the abandonment and ingenuousness of a child.
Ellen Key
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
Ingrid Bergman
I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life.
August Strindberg
Fear less hope more eat less chew more whine less breathe more talk less say more love more and all good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance renewed daily of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Christ - an anarchist who succeeded.
Axel Munthe
When one paints an ideal one does not need to limit one's imagination.
Ellen Key
Only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Dag Hammarskjöld
The divine essence itself is love and wisdom.
Emmanuel Swedenborg
Friendship needs no words-it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.
Dag Hammarskjöld