Top 79 Quotes & Sayings by Hans Christian Andersen
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
Travelling expands the mind rarely.
My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident.
Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps.
Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.
Where words fail, music speaks.
Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.
Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.
In the days of Moses and the prophets such a man would have been counted among the wise men of the land; in the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake.
Farewell, farewell," said the swallow, with a heavy heart, as he left the warm countries, to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang "Tweet, tweet," and from his song came the whole story.
?"Does all the beauty of the world stop when you die?" "No," said the Old Oak; "it will last much longer - longer than I can even think of." "Well, then," said the little May-fly, "we have the same time to live; only we reckon differently.
Time is so fleeting that if we do not remember God in our youth, age may find us incapable of thinking of him.
A human life is a story told by God.
To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.
How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.
Each time I think that the song is ended ... something higher and better begins for me.
Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.
He found whole figures which represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just the word he wanted - that word was 'eternity', and the Snow Queen had said, "If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new skates." But he could not find it out.
Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!
But shouldn't all of us on earth give the best we have to others and offer whatever is in our power?
There was once a bundle of matches, and they were frightfully proud because of their high origin. Their family tree, that is to say the great pine tree of which they were each a little splinter, had been the giant of the forest.
Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them.
If you looked down to the bottom of my soul, you would understand fully the source of my longing and – pity me. Even the open, transparent lake has its unknown depths, which no divers know.
I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen; only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow.
Every step you take will feel as if you were treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow. I am willing to help you, but are you willing to suffer all this?" "Yes," the little mermaid said in a trembling voice, as she thought of the Prince and of gaining a human soul.
It was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher power.
Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.
We cannot expect to be happy always ... by experiencing evil as well as good we become wise.
To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.
Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.
Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.
Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on earth. The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.
But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.
Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars.
No, the light is too intense; we do not yet have eyes that can see all the glory God has created. But maybe someday we will have such eyes. That will be the most wonderful fairy tale of all, for we ourselves will be part of it.
Some are created for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do without altogether.
Don't ask me how I am! I understand nothing more!
Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer's evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.
When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.
She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.
Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, 'I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.
I only appear to be dead.
The naive was only a part of my fairy tales; humour was the real salt in them.
Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.
The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.
Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence
To travel is to live.
I covet honour in the same way as a miser covets gold.
It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born ... Some call me the Elder Granny, others - the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories.
My life will be the best illustration of all my work.
But the Emperor has nothing at all on!
Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!
One cannot quite trust the word of potted flowers," thought the butterfly; "they have too much to do with men.
A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny.
There was once a merchant who was so rich that he might have paved the whole street, and a little alley besides, with silver money. But he didn't do it--he knew better how to use his money than that.
The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.
The sun shines upon good and bad alike.
To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.
It is the power of thought that gives man power over nature.
We haven't yet got eyes that can gaze into all the splendour that God has created, but we shall get them one day; and that will be the finest fairy tale of all, for we shall be in it ourselves.
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