J August Strindberg Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had all these famous writers in Sweden and from all over the world home at dinner. I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be a highbrow writer as my father. He never, ever read anything like crime novels. He wrote biographies of Dante, James Joyce, August Strindberg and Joseph Conrad. — David Lagercrantz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[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

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

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