22+ Halldór Laxness Quotes (Novelistic, Icelandic And Nobel)

Halldór Laxness was an Icelandic novelist, poet, and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was known for his novels and plays that combined social commentary with surrealist elements. His most famous works include Independent People and World Light.

Top 10 Halldór Laxness Quotes

1. Icelanders are grateful to meet foreigners who have heard of their country. And even more grateful to hear someone say it deserves better.
2. My motto is strong packaging, clear addressing.
3. It's a useful habit to never believe more than half of what people tell you, and not to concern yourself with the rest. Rather keep your mind free and your path your own.
4. What you have stolen can never be yours.
5. Like all great rationalists you believed in things that were twice as incredible as theology.
6. No one is so busy that he hasn't the time to dismantle a work of art.
7. When a man has a flower in his life he builds a house.
8. Whoever doesn't live in poetry cannot survive here on earth.
9. For man is essentially alone, and one should pity him and love him and grieve with him.
10. A free man can live on fish.Independence is better than meat

Halldór Laxness Short Quotes

• You have fettered yourself of your own free will, man - break the fetters!
• It's an old saying that one still has to know something, despite everything.
• It's a pity we don't whistle at one another, like birds. Words are misleading.

Halldór Laxness Famous Quotes And Sayings

Where the glacier meets the sky, the land ceases to be earthly, and the earth becomes one with the heavens; no sorrows live there anymore, and therefore joy is not necessary; beauty alone reigns there, beyond all demands. — Halldór Laxness

Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes. — Halldór Laxness

One boy's footprints are not long in being lost in the snow, in the steadily falling snow of the shortest day, the longest night; they are lost as soon as they are made. And once again the heath is clothed in drifting white. And there is no ghost, save the one ghost that lives in the heart of a motherless boy, till his footprints disappear. — Halldór Laxness

Of all the creatures that man kills for his amusement there is only one that he kills out of hatred—other men. Man hates nothing as much as himself. That is why war is called the leprosy of the human soul. — Halldór Laxness

Don't forget that few people are likely to tell more than a small part of the truth: no one tells much of the truth, let alone the whole truth. Spoken words are facts in themselves, whether true or false. When people talk they reveal themselves, whether they're lying or telling the truth. — Halldór Laxness

The tyranny of mankind; it was like the obstinate drip of water falling on a stone and hollowing it little by little; and this drip continued, falling obstinately, falling without pause on the souls of the children. — Halldór Laxness

A wise man once said that next to losing its mother, there is nothing more healthy for a child than to lose its father. — Halldór Laxness

Remember, any lie you are told, even deliberately, is often a more significant fact than a truth told in all sincerity. — Halldór Laxness

My opinion has always been this, that you ought to never give up as long as you live, even though they have stolen everything from you. If nothing else, you can always call the air you breath your own, or at any rate you can claim that you have it on loan. Yes, lass, last night I ate stolen bread and left my son among men who are going to use pick-handles on the authorities, so I thought I might just as well look you up this morning. — Halldór Laxness

Life Lessons by Halldór Laxness

1. Halldór Laxness's works emphasize the importance of individual freedom, the power of imagination, and the need to question authority.
2. He also stresses the importance of understanding the past in order to shape the future, and of recognizing the value of both traditional and modern ways of life.
3. Through his works, Laxness encourages readers to think critically and to strive for a better world, both for themselves and for others.