Pär Lagerkvist > Quotes

“Bitter, too, to be forced to acknowledge in one's heart how little love has to do with kindness.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“Nothing is more foreign than the world of one's childhood when one has truly left it.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“-No, the man said, looking past him with his empty gaze, the realm of the dead isn't anything. But to those who have been there, nothing else is anything either.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, Barabbas

“Human beings like to see themselves reflected in clouded mirrors.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“And they are deformed though it does not show on the outside. I live only my dwarf life. I never go around tall and smooth-featured. I am ever myself, always the same, I live one life alone. I have no other being inside me. And I recognize everything within me, nothing ever comes up from my inner depths, nothing there is shrouded in mystery. Therefore I do not fear the things which frighten them, the incoherent, the unknown, the mysterious. Such things do not exist for me. There is nothing "different" about me.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“Nothing is so sure as the final oblivion.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“What would life be like if it were not futile? Futility is the foundation upon which it rests. On what other foundation could it have been based which would have held and never given way? A great idea can be undermined by another great idea and, in due course, be demolished by it. But futility is inaccessible, indestructible, immovable. It is a true foundation and that is why it has been chosen as such.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“All human culture is but an attempt at something unattainable, something which far transcends our powers of realization. There it stands, mutilated, tragic as a torso. Is not the human spirit itself a torso?”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“Malevolence, like love, needs few words.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“It is incomprehensible that he should want to have these futile people here, and still more incomprehensible that he should be able to sit and listen to them and their stupid chatter. I can understand that he may occasionally listen to poets reciting their verses; they can be regarded as buffoons such as are always kept at court. They laud the lofty purity of the human soul, great events and heroic feats, and there is nothing to be said against all that, particularly if their songs flatter him. Human beings need flattery; otherwise they do not fulfill their purpose, not even in their own eyes. And both the present and the past contain much that is beautiful and noble which, without due praise, would have been neither noble nor beautiful. Above all, they sing the praises of love, which is quite as it should be, for nothing else is in such need of transformation into something different. The ladies are filled with melancholy and their breasts heave with sighs; the men gaze vaguely and dreamily into space, for they all know what it is really like and realize that this must be an especially beautiful poem.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“Love is something which dies and when dead it rots and becomes soil for a new love. The the dead love continues its secret life in the living one, and thus in reality there is no death in love.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“En gång ska du vara en av dem som levat för längesen.
Jorden skall minnas dig så som den minns gräset och skogarna,
det multnade lövet.
Så som myllan minns
och så som bergen minns vindarna.
Din frid skall vara oändlig så som havet.”
― Pär Lagerkvist

“Kärleken är någonting som dör. Och när den dör går den över i förruttnelse och kan bli jordmån för en ny kärlek. Den döda kärleken lever då sitt hemliga liv i den levande och det finns i själva verket i kärleken ingen död.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“An enviable lunatic! One for whom a pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“Всякая подлинная жизненная судьба для человека - клетка, потому что она
предлагает лишь один вариант, потому что границы ее жестки и определенны, и
чем жестче ее границы, тем острее дает она почувствовать простирающуюся за
ними беспредельность.”
― Пер Лагерквист

“Eternity… It has nothing to do with life, I thought; it is the contrary to all life. It is something limitless, endless, a realm of death which the living must look into with horror. Was it here that I was to dwell?”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“It is difficult to understand those whom one does not hate, for then one is unarmed, one has nothing with which to penetrate into their being.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“Att veta mer än som är nödvändigt, det är dårskap... tvivlar vi mer än som är nödvändigt så rycks maskerna av - och våra ansikten lyser spöklika och slappa i festskenet... vi får leta bland maskerna för att se vilka vi var - och gitter inte leta.”
― Lagerkvist-P

“El amor es algo que muere. Y cuando muere se pudre, pero puede servir de humus para un nuevo amor. De modo que aquel amor ya muerto continúa viviendo una vida secreta en el nuevo amor, y así nos hallamos con que el amor es inmortal.”
― Pär Lagerkvist

“In reality all of them want a war. It implies a simplification which comes as a relief. Everybody thinks that life is too complicated, and so it is as they live it. In itself life is not at all complicated; on the contrary its salient feature is its great simplicity, but they can never understand that. They do not realize that it is best when it is left as it is; they can never leave it in peace, or refrain from using it for a number of strange ends. But all the same they think that it is wonderful to be alive!”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“. . . he was alone in the endless night that rested over the whole earth, alone in heaven and on earth and among the living and the dead. This he had always been . . . .”
― Pär Lagerkvist, Barabbas

“Den själarnas vackra maskerad som vi kallar kärlek... Där gyckelbilderna möts... Och tror att deras värld är upphöjd och skön!”
― Lagerkvist-P

“Only the gods have many destinies and need never die. They are filled with everything and experience everything. Everything - except human happiness. That they can never know and therefore they grudge it to men. Nothing makes them so evil and cruel as that men should presume to be happy and forget them for the sake of their earthly happiness.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“In appearance he was well-bred amiability personified, but one cannot judge by people's faces. It is their bodies which show them as the kind of animals they are.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“He thought about the highest and holiest in life and of what nature it might be: that perhaps it exists only as a dream and cannot survive reality, the awakening. But that it does nevertheless exist. That perfect love exists and the Holy Land exists; it is just that we cannot reach it.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, Pilgrim at Sea

“I have noticed that sometimes I frighten people; what they really fear is themselves. They think it is I who scare them, but it is the dwarf within them, the ape-faced manlike being who sticks up his head from the depths of their souls.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Dwarf

“Accontentarsi dell'incertezza, essere soddisfatti e felici… dell'incertezza… e sceglierla. Scegliere l'incertezza e il dubbio. Scegliere se stessi, così come si è. Osare essere come si è, senza muoversi alcun rimprovero. E scegliere il mare, il mare incostante, sconfinato, sconosciuto, e un viaggio senza fine e senza una meta precisa, senza meta…”
― Pär Lagerkvist, Pilgrim at Sea

“I have seen God, as you have," he added after a time. "I have met him, and the meeting has filled my soul with horror."

The old woman was quite hidden from him in the darkness. But he heard her say in a low, almost toneless voice: "There is no joy in seeing God.”
― Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl

“He notado que a veces inspiro temor. Pero lo que cada uno teme es a sí mismo. Creen que yo soy la causa de sus preocupaciones, mas
lo que en realidad los asusta es el enano que llevan dentro, la caricatura humana de rostro simiesco que suele asomar la cabeza desde las profundidades del alma. Se asustan porque ignoran que llevan otro ser dentro de ellos mismos. Les espanta ver surgir a la superficie ese desconocido que les parece no tener nada de común con su verdadera vida: Cuando nada aparece por encima de esos
bajos fondos, entonces ni se asustan ni se inquietan por lo que pueda suceder. Andan con la cabeza levantada, impasibles, con sus
rostros inexpresivos. Pero hay siempre en ellos alguna otra cosa que fingen ignorar; viven, sin saberlo, muchas vidas a la vez. Son
singularmente recelosos e incoherentes. Y son deformes, aun cuando esto no sea visible”
― Lagerkvi, The Dwarf

“Beyond the gods, beyond all that falsifies and coarsens the world of holiness, beyond all lies and distortion, all twisted divinities and all the abortions of human imagination, there must be something stupendous which is inaccessible to us. Which, by our very failure to capture it, demonstrates how inaccessible it is. Beyond all the sacred clutter the holy thing must exist. That I believe, of that I am certain.”
― Par Lagerkvist, The Death of Ahasuerus