Erling Kagge > Quotes

“The starry sky is the truest friend in life, when you've first become acquainted; it is ever there, it gives ever peace, ever reminds you that your restlessness, your doubt, your pains are passing trivialities.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise

“I believe it's possible for everyone to discover this silence within themselves. It is there all the time, even when we are surrounded by constant noise. Deep down in the ocean, below the waves and ripples, you can find your internal silence. Standing in the shower, letting the water wash over your head, sitting in front of a crackling fire, swimming across a forest lake or taking a walk over a field: all these can be experiences of perfect stillness too. I love that.”
― Erling Kagge

“Shutting out the world is not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is seeing the world a bit more clearly, staying a course and trying to love your life. Silence in itself is rich. It is exclusive and luxurious. A key to unlock new ways of thinking. I don’t regard it as a renunciation or something spiritual, but rather as a practical resource for living a richer life.”
― Erling Kagge, Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“We do have enough time. Life is long, if we listen to ourselves often enough, and look up.”
― Erling Kagge

“Journeys of discovery are not something you start doing, but something you gradually stop doing.”
― Erling Kagge, Walking: One Step At a Time

“we fear death to varying degrees, but the fear of not having lived is even stronger. That fear increases towards the end of life, when you understand that it will soon be too late.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“Allow the world to vanish when you go into it. To listen is to search for new opportunities, to seek fresh challenges. The most important book you can read is the one about yourself. It is open.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“What we are experiencing is experiential poverty. Such poverty may not only be about a lack of experiences, where nothing is happening. An abundance of activities can also create a feeling of experiential poverty. And this last point is interesting. Things just get to be too much. the problem, according to Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, is that we carry on seeking "increasingly more powerful experiences" instead of pausing to breathe deeply, shut out the world and use the time to experience ourselves. The idea that boredom can be avoided by constantly pursuing something new, being available around the clock, sending messages and clicking further, watching something you haven't yet seen, is naive. The more you try to avoid boredom, the more bored you become. Routine is like that too... Busying oneself becomes a goal in and of itself, instead of allowing that same restlessness to lead you somewhere further.”
― Erling Kagge, Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“When you’ve invested a lot of time in being accessible and keeping up with what’s happening, it’s easy to conclude that it all has a certain value, even if what you have done might not be important. This is called rationalization. The New York Review of Books labeled the battle between producers of apps “the new opium wars,” and the paper claims that “marketers have adopted addiction as an explicit commercial strategy.” The only difference is that the pushers aren’t peddling a product that can be smoked in a pipe, but rather is ingested via sugar-coated apps.

In a way, silence is the opposition to all of this. It’s about getting inside what you are doing. Experiencing rather than overthinking. Allowing each moment to be big enough. Not living through other people and other things. Shutting out the world and fashioning your own silence whenever you run, cook food, have sex, study, chat, work, think of a new idea, read or dance.”
― Erling Kagge , Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“After having put my shoes on and let my thoughts wander, I am sure of one thing – to put one foot in front of the other is one of the most important things we do.”
― Erling Kagge

“By turning his gaze upwards, (he) also turned it inwards, towards his inner silence and uncovered forgotten sides. Into that universe which to me is just as mysterious as the outer space that surrounds us. One universe stretches outwards, the other inwards. To me the latter universe is of the greatest interest. For, as the poet Emily Dickinson rightly concluded, “The Brain—is wider than the Sky.”
― Erling Kagge

“Words can destroy the atmosphere. They are unsatisfactory. Yes, it is incredible to share grand experiences with others, but talking about it may distance us from what is happening.”
― Erling Kagge, Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“I don't knit, but when I watch someone who does, I think that they must have found some of the same inner peace that I discovered during my expeditions, even if their surroundings are not as quiet.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“Their heads are now filled with more ambitions than questions.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence

“Alle disse dage, der kom og gik, ej vidste jeg, at de var livet.”
― Erling Kagge, Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“Boredom can be described as a lack of purpose....boredom always gives the feeling of being held captive.”
― Erling Kagge, Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“Where fear is ever present you will never tire of pleasure in the relationship. It sounds brutal, but Stendhal is right. Life is brutal. I am living dangerously when I take a relationship for granted. Most people think climbing Everest is very risky, but things usually work out. However, taking reciprocal love for granted – I would never dare do that.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“Wonder is the very engine of life.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“The struggle lies between the ears, not in the feet,’ I wrote after the journey to the North Pole. If the body’s able but we can’t convince the head, it isn’t easy to get anywhere.”
― Erling Kagge, Philosophy for Polar Explorers

“Silence in itself is rich. It is exclusive and luxurious. A key to unlock new ways of thinking. I don’t regard it as a renunciation or something spiritual, but rather as a practical resource for living a richer life. Or, to put it in more ordinary terms, as a deeper form of experiencing life than just turning on the TV to watch the news, again.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“According to a much-referenced study, we humans are worse at concentrating than a goldfish. Humans today lose their concentration after eight seconds, while the goldfish averaged nine.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise

“Vähehaaval sain aru, et maailm ei ole niisugune, nagu see paistab, vaid selline, nagu sina oled.”
― Erling Kagge, Å gå. Ett skritt av gangen

“Satisfaction is also a matter of sacrifice”
― Erling Kagge

“To walk is something much larger than a list of advantages you can read in an ad for vitamins...Why do we walk? Where do we walk from and what is our destination? We all have our own answers. Even if you and I walk next to each other, we can experience the walk differently.”
― Erling Kagge, Walking: One Step at a Time

“The composer John Cage, in his ‘Lecture on Nothing’,”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“Antartica has a mission as a unknown land. I belive that we need places that have not been fully explored (...)”
― Erling Kagge, Silence

“Just before he died, the neurologist Oliver Sacks focused on starry nights.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“Whenever I am unable to walk, climb or sail away from the world, I have learned to shut it out. Learning this took time. Only when I understood that I had a primal need for silence was I able to begin my search for it – and there, deep beneath a cacophony of traffic noise and thoughts, music and machinery, iPhones and snow ploughs, it lay in wait for me. Silence.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise

“If you’re told as a child that you can’t draw, it’s easy to believe it to be true for the rest of your life.”
― Erling Kagge, Philosophy for Polar Explorers

“The secret to walking to the South Pole is to put one foot in front of the other, and to do this enough times. On a purely technical scale this is quite simple. Even a mouse can eat an elephant if it takes small enough bites. The challenge lies in the desire.”
― Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise