Georg Brandes Quotes - Page 2

It gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother.

Since fresh examples and proofs could always be found of the alleged relation between guilt and punishment: if you behave in such and such a way, it will go badly with you. Now, as it generally does go badly, the allegation was constantly confirmed; and thus popular morality, a pseudo- science on a level with popular medicine, continually gained ground.

I was not afraid of what I did not like. To overcome dislike of a thing often satisfied one's feeling of honour.

Among the delights of Summer were picnics to the woods.

Birth was something that came quite unexpectedly, and afterwards there was one child more in the house.

The person upon whom the schoolboys' attention centred was, of course, the Headmaster.

Just about this time, when in imagination I was so great a warrior, I had good use in real life for more strength, as I was no longer taken to school by the nurse, but instead had myself to protect my brother, two years my junior.

School is a foretaste of life.

When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my appearance.

My first experiences of academic friendship made me smile in after years when I looked back on them. But my circle of acquaintances had gradually grown so large that it was only natural new friendships should grow out of it.

I came into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry.

Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave.

It is useless to send armies against ideas.

Any feeling that I was enriching my mind from those surrounding me was unfortunately rare with me.

He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish.

But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both.

But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.

I became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer.

I admired in others the strength that I lacked myself.

What is public opinion? It is private indolence.

The Danish glee: the national version of cheerfulness.

It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow.

On the whole, the world was friendly. It chiefly depended on whether one were good or not.

I was at home then in the world of figures, but not in that of values.

The loathing of mankind is a force that surprises and overwhelms one, fed by hundreds of springs concealed his subconsciousness. One only detects its presence after having long entertained it unawares.