Knut Hamsun Mysteries Quotes

But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…

I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.

The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and like a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask the mysterious God of life; for no one knows such things. She gave him nothing, no nothing did she give him and yet he thanked her. She said: Give me your peace and your reason! And he was only sorry she did not ask for his life.

There are some people who cannot help giving. Why? Because they experience a real psychological pleasure in doing so. They don't do it with an eye to their own advantage, they do it on the quiet; they detest doing it openly because that would take away some of the satisfaction. They do it in secret, with quick trembling hands, their breasts rocked by a spiritual well being which they do not themselves understand.

Do you know what constitutes a great poet? He is a person without shame, incapable of blushing. Ordinary fools have moments when they go off by themselves and blush with shame; not so the great poet.... If you really have to quote someone, quote a geographer; that way you won't give yourself away. (p 44)

But now the world breaks in on us, the world is shocked, the world looks upon our idyll as madness. The world maintains that no rational man or woman would have chosen this way of life - therefore, it is madness. Alone I confront them and tell them that nothing could be saner or truer! What do people really know about life? We fall in line, follow the pattern established by our mentors. Everything is based on assumptions; even time, space, motion, matter are nothing but supposition. The world has no new knowledge to impart; it merely accepts what is there.

What does the world know? Nothing! You simply get used to something, you accept it and acknowledge it, because your teacher has acknowledged it before you; everything is just a supposition—indeed, even time, space, motion, matter are suppositions. The world knows nothing, it merely accepts things…

What would it profit us, after all, even from a purely practical viewpoint, if we stripped life of all poetry, all dreams, all beautiful mysteries, all lies? What is truth, can you tell me that? You see, we only advanced by way of symbols, and we change the symbols as we progress.

I have no respect to merchants and preachers; as far as I’m concerned, their only talent is coming up with the right word at the right time. What is a professional preacher, really? He is a kind of middleman who for the wrong reasons tries to make people buy his goods. The more he sells, the more his stock rises. The louder he hawks his wares, the larger his business grows.

Genius in the popular sense has become common. (...) Rather than admire the mediocre great men over whom passersby nudge each other in awe, I venerate the young, unknown geniuses who die in their teens, their souls shattered - delicate, phosphorescent glowworms that one must see to know they really did exist.

If I happened to find a diamond one day, I would call it Dagny, because the very sound of your name thrills me. I only wish that I could forever hear your name, hear it spoken by all men and beasts, by every mountain and every star. I wish I were deaf to every sound except your name ringing in my ears day and night for the rest of my life.

Alas, love turns the human heart into a mildewed garden, a lush and shameless garden in which grow mysterious, obscene toadstools.

fraudulent blue ozone

My heart understands all, and it no longer beats, it peals.

What power that girl wielded, though there was nothing striking or unusual about her - unless one considered her long braid and her common sense!

İnsanlık sen ne eşeksin! İsteyen seni istediği yere güder.

No, I don't admire the genius. But I admire and love the result of the genius's activity in the world, of which the great man is only the poor necessary tool, only, so to speak, the paltry awl to bore with.

Ak, kjærligheten den gjør menneskehjærtet til en sophave, en frodig og uforskammet have hvori står hemmelighetsfuld og fræk sop.

Ja, han var gal, han var gal. Det måtte han være; for Sara bydde ham kaffe, mælk, te, bydde ham øl, bydde ham alt hun visste, men han reiste sig allikevel fra frokostbordet straks efter han hadde sat sig og lot maten stå.

What if one were up there, drifting about among suns and feeling the tails of comets fan one's forehead! How small the earth was and how puny the people; a Norway of two million provincial souls and a mortgage bank to help feed them! What was life worth at such a rate? You elbowed yourself ahead in the sweat of your face for a few mortal years, only to perish all the same, all the same!

Great men are excellent topics of conversation, but the superior man, the superior men, the masters, the universal spirits on horseback, have to stop and search their memories merely to know who these so-called great men might be. And so the great man is left with the crowd, the worthless majority...for his admirers.

A maiden was imprisoned in a stone tower. She loved a lord. Why? Ask the wind and the stars, ask the god of life; for no one else knows these things. And the lord was her friend and her lover; but time passed, and one fine day he saw someone else and his heart turned away. As a youth he loved the maiden. Often he called her his bliss and his dove, and her embrace was hot and heaving. He said, Give me your heart! And she did so. He said, May I ask you for something, my love? And she answered, in raptures, Yes. She gave him all, and yet he never thanked her. The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask life’s mysterious god; for no one else knows these things. She gave him nothing, no, nothing did she give him, and yet he thanked her. She said, Give me your peace and your sanity. And he only grieved that she didn’t ask for his life. And the maiden was put in the tower. . . .

Og naar hun kommer, forstaar mit Hjerte alt, og det slaar ikke længer, det klemter.

God help me, how Tolstoy sweats over drying up people's sources of life, of wild and joyful life, drying them up and making the world fat with the love of God and everyman. ... But the man is old, after all, his fountains of life run dry, without a trace remaining of human affections. ... Only someone who has become slow and watertight with old age, satiated and hardened with pleasure, will go to youth and say, Renounce! ... And yet the youth renounces nothing, but sins royally for forty years. Such is the course of nature!

-რას არ ჩაიდენს კაცი! თქვენდამი სიყვარულის გამო ზურგს უკან გაგჭორეთ კიდეც და კეკლუცი გიწოდეთ. შევეცადე, რამენაირად დამემდაბლებინეთ და ამგვარად საკუთარი თავი მენუგეშებინა, რათა გული საბოლოოდ არ გამტეხოდა. მშვენივრად ვიცი, რომ ჩემთვის მიუწვდომელი ქალი ხართ. აგერ უკვე მეხუთედ გხედავთ, მაგრამ გული მხოლოდ დღეს გადაგიშალეთ, თუმცა ამის გაკეთება პირველივე დღეს შემეძლო. გარდა ამისა, დღეს დაბადების დღე მაქვს, ოცდაცხრა წლის შევსრულდი და დილიდანვე მშვენიერ გუნებაზე ვარ. მთელი დღეა ვღიღინებ. ჰოდა, რატომღაც ვიფიქრე... კაცს რომ ასეთი სისულელეების სჯერა, ბუნებრივია, სასაცილოა, მაგრამ რატომღაც საკუთარ თავს მაინც ვუთხარი: დღეს მას თუ შეხვდები, ყველაფერი უნდა აუხსნა და სიმართლეში გამოუტყდე. ბევრი არაფერი დაშავდება, რაც უნდა იყოს, დღეს ხომ დაბადების დღე გაქვს. ესეც შეგიძლია უთხრა და იქნებ მაშინ მაინც გაპატიოს-მეთქი. გეცინებათ, არა? დიახ, ვიცი რომ მართლა სასაცილოა. მაგრამ ახლა საქმეს ვეღარაფრით ვუშველი. ასე რომ, მზად ვარ, ხარკი სხვა დანარჩენებივით მეც შემოგწიროთ.

To me, it seems unspeakably shabby to make a fuss over charity. You're walking along the street one day, the weather is so and so and you see such and such people, all of which builds up a certain mood in you. Suddenly you catch sight of a face, a child's face, a beggar's face----let's say a beggar's face---which makes you tremble. A strange sensation vibrates through your soul, and you stamp your foot and come to a halt. This face has struck an exceptionally sensitive chord in you, and you lure the beggar into an entranceway and press a ten-krone bill into his hand. If you give me away by as much as a world, I'll kill you! you whisper, and you fairly grind your teeth and shed tears of anger saying it. That's how important it is to you to remain undiscovered. And this can happen repeatedly, day after day, so that often you end up in the worst kind of scrape yourself, without a penny in your pocket...

Den store dikter avstedkommer en sammenknepen mund i sit ansigt, strammer sit fuglebryst ut til det ytterste og frembringer følgende ord: Å dikte er å holde dommedag over sig selv.

...As I lie there in this position, letting my eyes wander down my breast and legs, I notice the twitching motion made by my foot at each beat of my pulse. I sit up halfway and look down at my feet, and at this moment I experience a fantastic, alien state I’d never felt before; a delicate, mysterious thrill spreads through my nerves, as though they were flooded by surges of light. When I looked at my shoes, it was as though I had met a good friend or got back a torn-off part of me: a feeling of recognition trembles through all my sense, tears spring to my eyes, and I perceive my shoes as a softly murmuring tune coming toward me. Weakness! I said harshly to myself, and I clenched my fists and said: Weakness. I mocked myself for these ridiculous feelings, made fun of myself quite consciously; I spoke very sternly and reasonably, and I fiercely squeezed my eyes shut to get rid of my tears. Then I begin, as though I’d never seen my shoes before, to study their appearance, their mimicry when I move my feet, their shape and the worn uppers, and I discover that their wrinkles and their white seams give them an expression, lend them a physiognomy. Something of my own nature had entered into these shoes --- they affected me like a breath upon my being, a living, a breathing part of me…

Mit blods røst sier mig at den er størst som har tilført tilværelsen mest grunnværdi, mest positiv profit. Den store terrorist er størst, dimensionen, den uhørte donkraft som veier kloder op.

Hvorfor blander jeg mig i andres affærer? Hvorfor er jeg overhodet kommet hit til byen? Skete det på grund av en eller annen katastrofe i universet, for eksempel på grund av Gladstones forkjølelse? Hehehe, Gud hjælpe dig, barn, hvis du sier som sandt er: at du egentlig var på veien hjem, men at du med ett blev så levende bevæget ved synet av denne by – så liten og elendig som den er – at du var nær ved å gråte av en hemmelighetsfuld og fremmed glæde da du så alle flagene.

Får den ikke munken til å luse indover stængte haver og lægge øiet ind til de sovendes vinduer om natten? Og besætter den ikke nonnen med dårskap og formørker prinsessens forstand? Den slår kongens hode i veien så hans hår feier alt veiens støv, og derunder hvisker han ublu ord for sig selv og ler og stikker tungen ut.

It’s very simple: what are we gaining—excuse me if I’m repeating myself—what are we gaining by a pragmatism that robs our life of poetry, dreams, mysticism—are these all lies? What is truth? Can you tell me that? We can only struggle along by using symbols, and we change them as we alter our views. By the way, let’s not neglect our drinks.

Гласът е опасен апарат. Разберете ме правилно: нямам предвид материалното звучене на гласа, който може да бъде висок или нисък, звънлив или приглушен, имам предвид не тембъра, не тоналната му характеристика, не, аз търся и усещам мистерията зад него, света, който го поражда… Дявол го взел впрочем онзи свят зад него! Все трябва да има един скрит свят!