Top 100 Hans Christian Andersen Quotes
#2. At his next visit he fancied he must have got into a narrow needlecase, full of sharp needles: "Oh," thought he, "this must be the heart of an old maid;" but such was not the fact;
Hans Christian Andersen
#3. A well-bred duckling spreads his feet wide apart, just like his father and mother, in this way. Now bend your neck, and say 'quack.'" The
Hans Christian Andersen
#4. No one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit of his office.
Hans Christian Andersen
#6. he had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but that which was good-for-nothing and looked ugly was shown magnified and increased in ugliness. In
Hans Christian Andersen
#7. Superbe! Charmant! exclaimed the ladies; for they all used to chatter French, each one worse than her neighbor.
Hans Christian Andersen
#8. Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps.
Hans Christian Andersen
#10. One cannot quite trust the word of potted flowers," thought the butterfly; "they have too much to do with men.
Hans Christian Andersen
#11. To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.
Hans Christian Andersen
#12. His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.
Hans Christian Andersen
#17. Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer's evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.
Hans Christian Andersen
#19. And the Top spoke no more of his old love; for that dies away when the beloved objects has lain for five years in a roof gutter and got wet through; yes, one does not know her again when one meets her in the dust box.
Hans Christian Andersen
#25. Some are created for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do without altogether.
Hans Christian Andersen
#26. Each time I think that the song is ended ... something higher and better begins for me.
Hans Christian Andersen
#27. You have become my thinking's single thought, My heart's first love: it had no love before. I love you as no love on earth is wrought, I love you now and love you evermore.
Hans Christian Andersen
#28. Every author has some peculiarity in his descriptions or in his style of writing. Those who do not like him, magnify it, shrug up their shoulders, and exclaim there he is again!
Hans Christian Andersen
#31. The right sort (of story) come of themselves: they tap at my forehead and say 'Here we are.
Hans Christian Andersen
#32. There was once a bundle of matches, and they were frightfully proud because of their high origin. Their family tree, that is to say the great pine tree of which they were each a little splinter, had been the giant of the forest.
Hans Christian Andersen
#33. They could see she was a real Princess and no question about it, now that she had felt one pea all the way through twenty mattresses and twenty more feather beds. Nobody but a Princess could be so delicate.
Hans Christian Andersen
#34. Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!
Hans Christian Andersen
#36. Now he is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes hang, and in whose hand I should like to lay my life's happiness. I will dare everything to win him and an immortal soul.
Hans Christian Andersen
#37. I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.
Hans Christian Andersen
#39. [ ... ] and the pea was put in the museum, where it can still be seen, if no one has stolen it.
Hans Christian Andersen
#40. Yes, it always pays when the wife believes and admits that her husband is the wisest man in the world and that whatever he does is right.
Hans Christian Andersen
#41. I think I will sit on it a little while longer," said the duck, "as I have sat so long already, a few days will be nothing." "Please yourself," said the old duck, and she went away.
Hans Christian Andersen
#42. Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!
Hans Christian Andersen
#43. Never had she danced so beautifully; the sharp knives cut her feet, but she did not feel it, for the pain in her heart was far greater.
Hans Christian Andersen
#44. In the days of Moses and the prophets such a man would have been counted among the wise men of the land; in the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake.
Hans Christian Andersen
#45. She thought, He whom I love more than my father or mother, he of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness. I dare do anything to win him and to gain an immortal soul.
Hans Christian Andersen
#46. There was once a king's son. Nobody had so many or such beautiful books as he had. He could read about everything which had ever happened in the world, and see it all represented in the most beautiful pictures.
Hans Christian Andersen
#47. Grant not my prayers, when they are contrary to Thy will, which at all times must be the best. Oh, hear them not;
Hans Christian Andersen
#49. Suddenly an ice-cold wind went through the vast hall, and the blind mother could feel that Death had arrived.
'How have you been able to find your way here?' he asked, 'how have you been able to get here faster than I have?'
'I'm a mother, she said.
Hans Christian Andersen
#50. When a storm was coming on, and they anticipated that a ship might sink, they swam before it, and sang most sweetly of the delight to be found beneath the water, begging the seafarers not to be afraid of coming down below.
Hans Christian Andersen
#51. Because she could not go near all these wonderful things, she longed for them all the more.
Hans Christian Andersen
#52. Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.
Hans Christian Andersen
#55. The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered in the Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst of which were deep pools.
Hans Christian Andersen
#56. There was once a merchant who was so rich that he might have paved the whole street, and a little alley besides, with silver money. But he didn't do it
he knew better how to use his money than that.
Hans Christian Andersen
#57. Then he would cry, but what nobody knows nobody cares for; so he would cry till he was tired, and then fall asleep; and while we are asleep we can feel neither hunger nor thirst. Ah, yes; sleep is a capital invention.
Hans Christian Andersen
#58. We cannot expect to be happy always ... by experiencing evil as well as good we become wise.
Hans Christian Andersen
#59. It was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher power.
Hans Christian Andersen
#62. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly, for the most essential things are invisible to the eye.
Hans Christian Andersen
#63. At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.
Hans Christian Andersen
#64. They sat close to each other, and he told her a story about her eyes. They were beautiful dark lakes in which her thoughts swam about like mermaids. And her forehead was a snowy mountain, grand and shining. These were lovely stories.
Hans Christian Andersen
#65. Where are your sons?" asked the prince.
"Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!" said the woman.
Hans Christian Andersen
#66. He reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to fall, and only remained standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first
Hans Christian Andersen
#67. It was the last night that she would
breathe the same air as he, or look out over the deep sea and up into the star-blue heaven. A dreamless,
eternal night awaited her, for she had no soul and had not been able to win one.
Hans Christian Andersen
#68. I only do His will, replied Death. I am his gardener. I take all His flowers and trees, and transplant them into the gardens of Paradise in an unknown land. How they flourish there, and what that garden resembles, I may not tell you.
Hans Christian Andersen
#70. Farewell, farewell," said the swallow, with a heavy heart, as he left the warm countries, to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang "Tweet, tweet," and from his song came the whole story.
Hans Christian Andersen
#72. Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
Hans Christian Andersen
#75. It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born ... Some call me the Elder Granny, others - the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories.
Hans Christian Andersen
#77. A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny.
Hans Christian Andersen
#79. Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them.
Hans Christian Andersen
#83. Language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst
Hans Christian Andersen
#86. Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea.
Hans Christian Andersen
#87. But these are small troubles, people will say. Yes, but they are drops which wear hollows in the rock.
Hans Christian Andersen
#88. Every town, like every man, has its own countenance; they have a common likeness and yet are different; one keeps in his mind all their peculiar touches.
Hans Christian Andersen
#89. Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart.
Hans Christian Andersen
#91. Yes, it is wonderful to be alive! Indeed, the Bottle inwardly sang of all this, as do young poets, who frequently also know nothing about the things of which they sing. From The Bottle Neck
Hans Christian Andersen
#92. The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.
Hans Christian Andersen
#94. Flew out and bit him in the neck. "Let him alone," said the mother, "he is not doing any harm." "Yes, but he
Hans Christian Andersen
#95. But shouldn't all of us on earth give the best we have to others and offer whatever is in our power?
Hans Christian Andersen
#96. Pop, pop, sounded in the air, and the two wild geese fell dead among the rushes, and the water was tinged with blood.
Hans Christian Andersen
#97. But if the star should set, even while I am penning these lines, be it so; still I can say it has shone, and I have received a rich portion.
Hans Christian Andersen
#99. The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.
Hans Christian Andersen
#100. Time is so fleeting that if we do not remember God in our youth, age may find us incapable of thinking of him.
Hans Christian Andersen
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
