Selma Lagerlöf Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

If dead things love, if earth and water distinguish friends from enemies, I should like to possess their love. I should like the green earth not to feel my step as a heavy burden. I should like her to forgive that she for my sake is wounded by plough and harrow, and willingly to open for my dead body.

Selma Lagerlöf
It is not a good omen to meet a lot of cats when one sets out on a journey, so the Lieutenant spat three times for each cat, as his mother had taught him to do...

Selma Lagerlöf
Strange, when you ask anyone's advice you see yourself what is right.

Selma Lagerlöf
She is so stiff and stand-offish. She is like a drawn bow, and we are afraid we'll get an arrow through our bodies if we come too near.

Selma Lagerlöf
He who is sorrowful can force himself to smile, but he who is glad cannot weep.

Selma Lagerlöf
It is often the case with the silent children about us, that they cherish a dream which they dare not talk about.

Selma Lagerlöf
Young horses who cannot bear the whip or spur find life hard. At every smart they start forward and rush to their destruction, and when the way is stony and difficult, they know no better expedient than to overturn the cart and gallop madly away.

Selma Lagerlöf
The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind... I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world.

Selma Lagerlöf
It is a strange thing to come home. While yet on the journey, you cannot at all realize how strange it will be.

Selma Lagerlöf
There isn't much that tastes better than praise from those who are wise and capable.

Selma Lagerlöf
Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you.

Selma Lagerlöf
But they tell us that even the little pigs grunt when the old boar suffers.

Selma Lagerlöf
If you have learned anything at all from us, Tummetott, you no longer think that the humans should have the whole earth to themselves.

Selma Lagerlöf
For what is man's soul but a flame? It flickers in and around the body of a man as does the flame around the rough log.

Selma Lagerlöf
There is so much one would rather not believe until one has seen for oneself whether it is true.

Selma Lagerlöf
For, so long as there are interesting books to read, it seems to me that neither I nor anyone else, for that matter, need be unhappy.

Selma Lagerlöf