Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENEach time I think that the song is ended … something higher and better begins for me.
More Hans Christian Andersen Quotes
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A human life is a story told by God.
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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.
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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.
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The naive was only a part of my fairy tales; humour was the real salt in them.
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I know what you want. It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. – The sea witch.
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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.
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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.
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Well, it’s not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!
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The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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Brave soldier, never fear. Even though your death is near.
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At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father’s palace as a dead man.
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The sun shines upon good and bad alike.
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She thought, “He whom I love more than my father or mother, he of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness.
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Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!
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Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer’s evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.
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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.
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Every town, like every man, has its own countenance; they have a common likeness and yet are different; one keeps in his mind all their peculiar touches.
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She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.
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Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them.
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Time is so fleeting that if we do not remember God in our youth, age may find us incapable of thinking of him.
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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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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.
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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