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Exlpore more Being quotes
"Great is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins."
"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."
"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down."
"The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions."
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved."
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
"And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness."
Explore more quotes by Knut Hamsun
"No, what I should really like to do right now, in the full blaze of lights, before this illustrious assembly, is to shower every one of you with gifts, with flowers, with offerings of poetry - to be young once more, to ride on the crest of the wave."
"However, I must not indulge in homespun wisdom here before so distinguished an assembly, especially as I am to be followed by a representative of science."
"Heaven knows that there are plenty of opportunities in later life, too, for being carried away. What of it? We remain what we are and, no doubt, it is all very good for us!"
"Were I more conversant with literature and its great names, I could go on quoting them ad infinitum and acknowledge my debt for the merit you have been generous enough to find in my work."
"In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived."
"I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and, more especially, from her lyrics of the last generation."
"You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content."
"No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation."
"Today riches and honours have been lavished on me, but one gift has been lacking, the most important one of all, the only one that matters, the gift of youth."
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