August Strindberg Quotes & Sayings

By attempting the impossible one can attain the highest level of the possible. — August Strindberg

People who keep dogs are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. — August Strindberg

Yes, I am crying although I am a man. But has not a man eyes! Has not a man hands, limbs,
senses, thoughts, passions? Is he not fed with the wine food, hurt by the same weapons, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a woman? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? And if you poison us, do we not die? Why shouldn't a man complain, a soldier weep? Because it is unmanly? Why is it unmanly? — August Strindberg

You do much worse things- you who can see to other planets."- Bertha, "The Father — August Strindberg

A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life. — August Strindberg

Growing old-it's not nice, but it's interesting. — August Strindberg

Every moment of enjoyment
Brings to some one else a sorrow,
But your sorrow gladdens no one,
For from sorrow naught but sorrow springs. — August Strindberg

Speaking at last becomes a vice, like
drinking. And why speak, if words do not cloak thoughts ? — August Strindberg

The further from one another, the nearer one can be. — August Strindberg

THE DAUGHTER: You named the earth - is that the ponderous world
And dark, that from the moon must take its light?
THE VOICE: It is the heaviest and densest sphere.
Of all that travel through the space.
THE DAUGHTER: And is it never brightened by the sun?
THE VOICE: Of course, the sun does reach it - now and then - — August Strindberg

I so despise people who keep dogs, they are cowards that havent got the curridge to bite themselfs — August Strindberg

PASTOR. Violence aside now, admit that he suffers from fixed ideas. DOCTOR. I think your ideas are even more fixed, pastor! PASTOR — August Strindberg

And why does man weep when he is sad? I asked at last - Because the glass in the eyes must be washed now and then, so that we can see clearly, said the child. — August Strindberg

Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. Anything is possible, anything can happen. On a flimsy ground of reality, imagination spins marvelous patterns. — August Strindberg

but I so often forget what I know! QUARANTINE — August Strindberg

Sorrow has the fortunate peculiarity that it preys upon itself. It dies of starvation. Since it is essentially an interruption of habits, it can be replaced by new habits. Constituting, as it does, a void, it is soon filled up by a real horror vacuum. — August Strindberg

What is economics? A science invented by the upper class in order to acquire the fruits of the labor of the underclass — August Strindberg

Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad. — August Strindberg

He saw the cause of his unhappiness in the family
the family as a social institution, which does not permit the child to become an independent individual at the proper time. — August Strindberg

God preserve us from writers who regurgitate what they have learnt from books! It is people's secrets we want to know - it is the natural history of the human heart that we have been trying to put down for a thousand years and everyone must and can leave their contribution. — August Strindberg

I see the playwright as a lay preacher peddling the ideas of his time in popular form. — August Strindberg

Some people seem to be born to suffer. — August Strindberg

At last everything was satisfactorily arranged, and I could not help admiring the setting: these mingled touches betrayed on a small scale the inspiration of a poet, the research of a scientist, the good taste of an artist, the gourmet's fondness for good food, and the love of flowers, which concealed in their delicate shadows a hint of the love of women — August Strindberg

I dream, therefore I exist. — August Strindberg

The ball was held in a middle-class home. The girls were anemic - some of them; the others were red as raspberries. John liked the pale ones best, the ones with black or blue rings round their eyes. They looked so sad and suffering and pitiable, and they cast tender yearning glances at him, such yearning glances. — August Strindberg

On the much revered family of North American mythology - and a metaphor for the Ruling Alliance:
Sacred family! ... The supposed home of all the virtues, where innocent children are tortured into their first falsehoods, where wills are broken by parental tyranny, and self-respect smothered by crowded, jostling egos. — August Strindberg

The world, life and human beings are only an illusion, a phantom, a dream image. — August Strindberg

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it. — August Strindberg

It's wonderful how, the moment you talk about God and love, your voice becomes hard, and your eyes fill with hatred. No, Margret, you certainly haven't the true faith. — August Strindberg

When aristocrats pretend they're common people
they get common! — August Strindberg

In the old days, one married a wife; now one forms a company with a female partner, or moves in to live with a friend. And then one seduces the partner, or defiles the friend. — August Strindberg

That is the thankless position of the father in the family - the provider for all, and the enemy of all. — August Strindberg

When people drink, they talk, and talk is dangerous! — August Strindberg

The will ... is the driving force of the mind. If it's injured, the mind falls to pieces. — August Strindberg

People are constantly clamoring for the joy of life. As for me, I find the joy of life in the hard and cruel battle of life - to learn something is a joy to me. — August Strindberg

Love between a man and woman is war. — August Strindberg

Family ... the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children. — August Strindberg

I love her and she loves me, and we hate each other with a wild hatred born of love. — August Strindberg

We are already in Hell. It is the earth itself that is Hell, the prison constructed for us by an intelligence superior to our own, in which I could not take a step without injuring the happiness of others, and in which my fellow creatures could not enjoy their own happiness without causing me pain. — August Strindberg

If you are afraid of loneliness, don't get married — August Strindberg

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak. — August Strindberg

What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them. — August Strindberg

I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life, and my pleasure comes from learning something. — August Strindberg

I do not care about my own appearance, but I would hope that people could see into my soul, and that is presented better in these photographs than in others. (On his self-portraits) — August Strindberg

Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police. — August Strindberg

He liked the girls, liked to hold them around the waist, felt like a man when he did. But as for talking with them, no, no! Then he felt as though he were dealing with another species of human being, in some cases a higher one, in others a lower. He secretly admired the weak, pale, little girl and had picked her to be his wife. That was still the only way he could think of a woman - as a wife. He danced in a very chaste and proper manner, but he heard awful stories about his pals, stories he didn't understand until later. They could dance the waltz backwards around the room in a very indecent way, and they told naughty stories about the girls. — August Strindberg

I always disliked dogs, those protectors of cowards who lack the courage to fight an assailant themselves. — August Strindberg

Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy. — August Strindberg

[My characters are] conglomerations of past and present stages of civilization, bits from books and newspapers, scraps of humanity, rags and tatters of fine clothing, patched together as is the human soul — August Strindberg

Because in the midst of happiness there is always a seed of unhappiness; it consumes itself like fire
it can't burn forever, sooner or later it must die; and this presentiment of the end destroys my happiness when it is at is height. — August Strindberg

Oh, I have loved him too much to feel no hate for him. — August Strindberg

When people refuse to speak out for too long, it's like water that's stagnant and starts to rot! — August Strindberg

Friendship can only exist between persons with similar interests and points of view. Man and woman by the conventions of society are born with different interests and different points of view. — August Strindberg

Now I know the full power of evil. It makes ugliness seem beautiful and goodness seem ugly and weak. — August Strindberg

Religion must be a punishment, because nobody gets religion who does not have a bad conscience. — August Strindberg

When women grow old and cease being women, they get beards on their chins; I wonder what men get when they grow old and cease to be men? — August Strindberg

This feeling of power, it's happiness to sit in a cottage by the Danube among six women who think I'm semi-idiot, and to know that in Paris, the headquarters of intelligence, 500 people are sitting dead-quiet in the auditorium and are foolish enough to expose their brains to my powers of suggestion. Some revolt! But many will go away with my spores in their gray matter. They will go home pregnant with the seed of my soul, and they will breed my brood. — August Strindberg

LAWYER. Justice that destroys itself in seeking to be just! - - - Right, that so often fosters wrong!!! DAUGHTER — August Strindberg

Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist; on a significant bases of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns; a mixture of memories, experiences, free fancies, incongruities and improvisations. — August Strindberg

Sometimes not seeing things can be a blessing. — August Strindberg

LAURA. Yes! It's strange, but I've never been able to look at a man without feeling I'm his superior. CAPTAIN — August Strindberg

It's risky to take anything on good faith where a woman is concerned. — August Strindberg

I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it was the other side of love. — August Strindberg

As soon as a work of art is of practical use, betrays a purpose or a tendency its beauty vanishes. — August Strindberg

When is revolution legal? When it succeeds! — August Strindberg

Meeting each other and leaving each other. Leaving and meeting. That's what life is! — August Strindberg

You are impossible. You are only a realist, and therefore nothing happens to you. — August Strindberg

I, too, am beginning to feel an immense need to become a savage and create a new world. — August Strindberg

Those who won't accept evil never get anything good. — August Strindberg

The hood-winked husband shows his anger, and the word jealous is flung in his face. Jealous husband equals betrayed husband. And there are women who look upon jealousy as synonymous with impotence, so that the betrayed husband can only shut his eyes, powerless in the face of such accusations. — August Strindberg

Autumn is my spring! — August Strindberg

- He really is the most arrogant person I've ever come across. 'I am, therefore God exists'. ALICE — August Strindberg

I prefer silence. Then you can hear thoughts and see into the past.
In silence you can't hide anything ... as you can in words. — August Strindberg

There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes. — August Strindberg