Susan > Susan's Quotes

“Many a man is given what is intended for another, but no man is given another's fate.”
― Sigrid Undset, The Wife

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset

“. . . if the way ahead is not clear, time is often the best editor of one's intentions.”
― Jacqueline Winspear, The Mapping of Love and Death

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“And she felt joy bubbling up in her heart—that the world was so full of sunshine and beauty and gladness. And she had put herself outside it, banished herself to her corner. For all that, it was a good thing that it was so good to live—for the others, for all who had not undone themselves. And when at that moment she felt a violent quickening of the child within her, her own heart seemed to stir and answer it—"No, no, I no longer wish you ill...”
― Sigrid Undset, The Axe

“Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough? . . .”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“For I've realized more and more with each year I've lived: There is no worthier work for the person who has been geared with the ability to see even a small part of God's mercy than to serve Him and to keep vigil and to pray for those people whose sight is still clouded by the shadow of worldly matters.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“the world is just as harsh a taskmaster as any other lord, and in the end it’s a lord without mercy.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“It is an easy matter, Olav, to be a good Christian so long as God asks no more of you than to hear sweet singing in church, and to yield Him obedience while He caresses you with the hand of a father. But a man's faith is put to the test on the day God's will is not his.”
― Sigrid Undset, The Axe

“But although it is the case that anyone who contends that in the Catholic medieval civilization of Europe woman was on the whole reckoned as the second—not the first—sex, can support his view by examples which appear conclusive, yet it is equally certain that women who in one way or another possessed more than average ability were given a chance of developing their talents and exercising them with a freedom from interference which would be inconceivable in a society molded by Lutheranism or Calvinism. Both the one-sided Lutheran eulogy of a snug family life and the Calvinistic hatred of spiritual charm, of the imaginative and poetical element in religion, and especially the Calvinists’ glorification of the industrious accumulation of capital and their belief in economic success as a peculiar favor bestowed on God’s elect—all this resulted in a contempt for specially feminine intellectual qualities: intuition, a psychological sense manifesting itself in tact and a gentle dignity in the courtesies of life, discretion, and feeling in the work of Christian charity.”
― Sigrid Undset, Stages on the Road

“No doubt the movement which rightly or wrongly we have learnt to call the emancipation of women is in the first place a result of the transformation of society into a capitalist and industrial community, in which the home has lost its importance as an economic and productive unity. But the bitter tone of the champions of Woman’s Rights in their arraignment of man’s rule, the suspiciousness which refused to believe that anything but oppression and masculine tyranny was at the bottom of a great number of laws and customs, which in reality were designed just as much to safeguard women and provide them with protectors and maintenance—the rabidity of militant feminists, in short—was a direct reaction against a dressing-gown and slippers tyranny which was peculiar to non-Catholic Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century—a revolt against mock heroes who slouched about their homes trying to assert authority over their womenfolk. The other day I came across a book which illustrates in a rather droll way the extent to which Northern European women have taken it for granted that this peculiar North European form of the subjection of women since the Reformation was characteristic of the whole past of Europe. It was a little essay by an English writer, Virginia Woolf—I confess that it is all I have read of hers,1 but she is said to have a great reputation as a novelist.”
― Sigrid Undset, Stages on the Road

“We know of course that the whole point is, the saints are not gods and never have been gods; even if they have often moved into temples which old pagan gods have had to evacuate, and even if they have often been smeared over with a little ancient paganism, the most ignorant and simple Catholics have always known that they are the very opposite of gods, men—that is, creatures, not creators. Even the most free-handed miracle workers among the saints do not operate by powers of their own, but by virtue of their association with God who created them and us all. And if popular legend often has a tendency to transform them, making it appear that they were distinguished from birth in a particular way, that from the very first they were equipped with extraordinary and unconventional qualities, this may be due to an unconscious attempt to provide an excuse for us ordinary people, who would be glad to evade the troublesome duty of becoming saints.”
― Sigrid Undset, Stages on the Road

“And it was most commonly by a man’s own cowardice that the Devil could entice him into his service—because the man was afraid God might demand too much of him—command him to utter a truth that was hard to force through his lips, or to abandon a cherished delight without which he believed himself not strong enough to live: gain or welfare, wantonness or the respect of others. Then came the old Father of lies and caught that man’s soul with his old master lie—that he demanded less of his servants and rewarded them better—so long as it lasted. But now Olav himself had to choose whether he would serve in one army or in the other.”
― Sigrid Undset, The Snake Pit

“Whenever she held him in her arms, she noticed that the boy’s mother would keep a jealous eye on the two of them and would come to take him away as soon as she deemed it proper and then possessively put him to her breast, hugging him greedily. Then it occurred to Kristin Lavransdatter in a new way that the interpreters of God’s words were right. Life on this earth was irredeemably tainted by strife; in this world, wherever people mingled, producing new descendants, allowing themselves to be drawn together by physical love and loving their own flesh, sorrows of the heart and broken expectations were bound to occur as surely as the frost appears in the autumn. Both life and death would separate friends in the end, as surely as the winter separates the tree from its leaves.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“You have to remember that I've been lonely for a long time. Loneliness is like ice. After you've been lonely long enough you don't realize you're cold, but you are... I don't know, maybe at the center of me there's some ice that never will melt, maybe it's just been there too long. But you mustn't worry. You didn't put it there.”
― Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show

“Is growin' up always miserable?" Sonny asked. "Nobody seems to enjoy it much."
"Oh, it ain't necessarily misearble," Sam replied. "About eighty percent of the time, I guess."
They were silent again, Sam the Lion thinking of the lovely, spritely girl he had once led into the water, right there, where they were sitting.
"We ought to go to a real fishin' tank next year," Sam said finally. "It don't do to think about things like that too much. If she were here now I'd probably be crazy again in about five minutes. Ain't that ridiculous?"
A half-hour later, when they had gathered up the gear and were on the way to town, he answered his own question. "It ain't really, " he said. "Being crazy about a woman like her's always the right thing to do. Being a decrepit old bag of bones is what's ridiculous.”
― Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show

“Do you know what it means to be heartbroken? It means your heart isn't whole, so you can't really do anything wholeheartedly.”
― Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show

“Her resolutions against Jim Meserve were just like the lightning-bugs holding a convention. They met at night and made scorning speeches against the sun and swore to do away with it and light up the world themselves. But the sun came up next morning and they all went under the leaves and owned up that the sun was boss-man in the world.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Seraph on the Suwanee