39 quotes
God made the world, My Lord, and looked at it, and saw that it was good. Yes. But what if the world had looked back at him, to see whether he was good or not?
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.
Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are.
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows that they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.
Journey Through Womanhood: Meditations from Our Collective Soul (2002)
Isak Dinesen is also known for this quote.
There is hardly any other sphere in which prejudice and superstition of the most horrific kind have been retained so long as in that of women, and just as it must have been an inexpressable relief for humanity when it shook off the burden of religious prejudice and superstition, I think it will be truly glorious when women become real people and have the whole world open before them.
Letter to her sister Elle (1923)
There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne — bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.
Out of Africa (1937)
Nobody has seen the trekking birds take their way towards such warmer spheres as do not exist, or rivers break their course through rocks and plains to run into an ocean which is not to be found. For God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.
Anecdotes of Destiny (1953)
I first began to tell tales to delight the world and make it wiser...
Anecdotes of Destiny (1953)
In the Ngong Forest I have also seen, on a narrow path through thick growth, in the middle of a very hot day, the Giant Forest Hog, a rare person to meet.
Out of Africa (1937)
Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.
Anecdotes of Destiny (1953)
Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence.
Last Tales (1957)
Letters from Africa: 1914-1931 (1981) edited by Frans Lasson, translated by Anne Born.
White people, who for a long time live alone with Natives, get into the habit of saying what they mean, because they have no reason or opportunity for dissimulation, and when they meet again their conversation keeps the Native tone.
Out of Africa (1937)
During the first quarter of the last century, seaside resorts became the fashion, even in those countries of Northern Europe within the minds of whose people the sea had hitherto held the role of the devil, the cold and voracious hereditary foe of humanity.
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you: that God and the Devil are one, the majesty coeternal, not two uncreated but one uncreated, and the Natives neither confounded the persons nor divided the substance.
Out of Africa (1937)
In a foreign country and with foreign species of life one should take measures to find out whether things will be keeping their value when dead. To settlers I give this advice: "For the sake of your eyes and hearts, shoot not the Iguana."
Out of Africa (1937)
The consolations of the vulgar are bitter in the royal ear. Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are. I have been told that lions, trapped and shut up in cages, grieve from shame more than from hunger.
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch … and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order … by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)