Hjalmar Soderberg Quotes & Sayings

Never will she be mine; never. I never brought a flush to her cheek, and it is not I who now have made it so chalk-white. And never will she slip across the street in the night, with anxiety in her heart and a letter to me.
Life has passed me by.
[..] I have got new curtains for my study; pure white. When I awoke this morning, I first thought it had been snowing. In my room the light was exactly as it is after the first fall of snow. I even fancied I caught the scent of snow freshly fallen. And soon it will come, the snow. One feels it in the air.
It will be welcome. Let it come. Let it fall. — Hjalmar Soderberg

For youth, the moon is a promise of all those tremendous things which await it, for older people a memento that the promise was never kept, a reminder of all that broke and went to pieces ...
And what is moonshine? Secondhand sunshine. Diluted, counterfeit. — Hjalmar Soderberg

I believe in the lust of the flesh and the incurable desolation of the soul. — Hjalmar Soderberg

One wants to be loved, in lack thereof admired, in lack thereof feared, in lack thereof loathed and despised. One wants to instill some sort of emotion in people. The soul trembles before emptiness and desires contact at any price. — Hjalmar Soderberg

Truth is like the sun, its value wholly depends upon our being at a correct distance away from it. — Hjalmar Soderberg

Thought is an acid, eating us away. At first we imagine it will only eat into that which is rotten and sick and must be removed. But thought thinks otherwise. It eats blindly. It begins with the prey you most gladly throw to it - but don't imagine it will be content with that! It doesn't stop until it has gnawed away the last thing you hold dear. — Hjalmar Soderberg

Do not go to the bottom of things, or you will go to the bottom yourself. — Hjalmar Soderberg

A pregnant woman is a frightful object. A new-born child is loathsome. A deathbed rarely makes so horrible an impression as childbirth, that terrible symphony of screams and filth and blood. — Hjalmar Soderberg

We want to be loved; failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. Our soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact. — Hjalmar Soderberg

Potemkin only deceived his empress;
how much more despicable to deceive oneself. — Hjalmar Soderberg

Nothing so reduces and drags down a human being as the consciousness of not being loved. — Hjalmar Soderberg

He was strict and hard and had perfectly clear and definite ideas about duty, where the others were concerned. For oneself one can always find circumstances that alter cases — Hjalmar Soderberg

People want to be loved; failing that admired; failing that feared; failing that hated and despised. They want to evoke some sort of sentiment. The soul shudders before oblivion and seeks connection at any price. — Hjalmar Soderberg

In the days when I was ambitious I worked out a very pretty little plan for conquering the whole earth and rearranging things as they ought to be; and when, in the end, everything became so good it almost began to be boring, then I was going to stuff my pockets with as much money as I could lay hands on and creep away, vanish in some cosmopolis and sit at a corner cafe and drink absinthe and enjoy seeing how everything went to the devil as soon as I wasn't on the scene any more. — Hjalmar Soderberg

We know so little about one another. We embrace a shadow and love a dream. — Hjalmar Soderberg