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I cannot bear it longer! Now, I know what it is to have a visit from one’s old thoughts, with what they may bring with them! I have had a visit from mine, and you may be sure it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at last about to jump down from the drawers.

Hans Christian Andersen

I have shed pewter tears! It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the wars and lose arms and legs! It would at least be a change.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Change Legs Tears War
Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Duckling Eggs Swans Ugly
He looked at the little maiden, and she looked at him; and he felt that he was melting away, but he still managed to keep himself erect, shouldering his gun bravely.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Gun Heart Morning
The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Men Wiser Wisest
A human life is a story told by God.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Condolences Grief Human Life Sympathy
Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Men Wise Writing
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.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Day Eye Fairy One Spiritual Talks
Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more!
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Ask Me More Understanding
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.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Clear Higher Power Providence
And the Top spoke no more of his old love; for that dies away when the beloved objects has lain for five years in a roof gutter and got wet through; yes, one does not know her again when one meets her in the dust box.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Dust Gutter Love Spoke Top Years
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.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Fall Girl Grandmother Someone Stars
I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Glorious Happiness Knowing Stars Years
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.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Air Clear Dust Glitter Stars
Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Butter Many People
Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Enjoy Improvement Life Self
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!
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Blood Fate Heart Street