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I had seen a herd of Buffalo, one hundred and twenty-nine of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching, but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.
Karen Blixen
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Love, with very young people, is a heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst, or to get drunk; it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine. A young man in love is essentially enraptured by the forces within himself.
Karen Blixen
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Where a pack of monkeys had traveled over the road, the smell of them lingered for a long time in the air, a dry and stale, mousy smell.
Karen Blixen
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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.
Karen Blixen
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Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.
Karen Blixen
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Now, looking back on my life in Africa, I feel that it might altogether be described as the existence of a person who had come from a rushed and noisy world, into a still country.
Karen Blixen
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I always have a difficult time making them believe that I intend everything as it's stated.
Karen Blixen
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It is when one begins to lose the consciousness of freedom, and when the idea of necessity enters the world at all, when there is any hurry or strain anywhere, a letter to be written or a train to catch, when you have got to work, to make the horses of the dream gallop, or to make the rifles go off, that the dream is declining, and turning into the nightmare, which belongs to the poorest and most vulgar class of dreams.
Karen Blixen
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There are times of great beauty on a coffee farm. When the plantation flowered in the beginning of the rains, it was a radiant sight, like a cloud of chalk, in the mist of the drizzling rain.
Karen Blixen
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And I had by now become used to the idea of witchcraft, it seemed a reasonable thing, so many things are about, at night, in Africa.
Karen Blixen
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And were my faith so strong that it could move mountains, that is the mountain that I would make come to me.
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The true art of the gods is the comic. The comic is a condescension of the divine to the world of man; it is the sublime vision, which cannot be studied, but must ever be celestially granted. In the comic the gods see their own being reflected as in a mirror, and while the tragic poet is bound by strict laws, they will allow the comic artist a freedom as unlimited as their own.
Karen Blixen
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When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music.
Karen Blixen
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I have been trying for a long time to understand God. Now I have made friends with him. To love him truly you must love change, and you must love a joke, these being the true inclinations of his own heart.
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Humanity has made a great error in seizing on a certain moment, no more intrinsically notable than any other moment and has called it Birth. The habit of honoring one single instant of the universal process to the disadvantage of other instants has done more, perhaps, than anything to obfuscate the crystal clearness of the fundamental flux.
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There are things which cannot be carried through even with the good will of everybody concerned
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Be not afraid of absurdity; do not shrink from the fantastic. Within a dilemma, choose the most unheard-of, the most dangerous solution. Be brave, be brave.
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Some people have an unconquerable love of riddles. They may have the chance of listening to plain sense, or to such wisdom that explains life; but no, they must go and work their brains over a riddle, just because they do not understand what it means.
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While we are young the idea of death or failure is intolerable to us; even the possibility of ridicule we cannot bear.
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People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue.
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I had seen a herd of elephant traveling through dense native forest... pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world.
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The best of my nature reveals itself in play, and play is sacred.
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I remember an old Danish bishop's saying to me that there are many ways to the recognition of truth, and that Burgundy is one of them.
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Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.
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It is often the case with a new idea that when it comes knocking on society's door with modesty and the best premises for its existence, there is a tremendous outcry from inside.
Karen Blixen
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
Karen Blixen
Born:
April 17, 1885
Died:
September 7, 1962
(aged 77)
Bio:
Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke, née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author, also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote works in Danish, French and English.
Known for:
Out of Africa (1937)
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Shadows of the Grass (1960)
Anecdotes of Destiny (1957)
Babette's Feast (1950)
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