What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine? Isak Dinesen More Quotes by Isak Dinesen More Quotes From Isak Dinesen The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea. Isak Dinesen ocean encouragement beach Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever. Isak Dinesen beautiful inspirational life Nobody has seen the trekking birds take their way towards such warmer spheres as do not exist, or rivers break their course through rocks and plains to run into an ocean which is not to be found. For God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home. Isak Dinesen ocean blessed running You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions. Isak Dinesen alive adventure travel You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future. Isak Dinesen wise worry past The real difference between God and human beings is that God cannot stand continence. No sooner has he created a season of a year, or a time of day, than he wishes for something quite different and sweeps it all away. And human beings cleave to the existing state of things. All their lives they are striving to hold the moment fast, and are up against a force majeure. Their art itself is nothing but the attempt to catch by all means the one particular moment, one mood, one light, the momentary beauty of one woman or one flower, and make it everlasting. Isak Dinesen flower real art God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road. Isak Dinesen live-in-the-present able world There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne — bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive. Isak Dinesen heartfelt gratitude drunk Here I am, where I am supposed to be. Isak Dinesen supposed-to-be here-i-am When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them. Isak Dinesen going-away strange looks I have been trying for a long time to understand God. Now I have made friends with him. To love him truly you must love change, and you must love a joke, these being the true inclinations of his own heart. Isak Dinesen heart trying long One must in this lower world love many things to know finally what one loves the best. Isak Dinesen world-love one-love world What is it which is bought dearly, offered for nothing, and then most often refused?--Experience, old people's experience. Isak Dinesen old-people experience people When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. Isak Dinesen encouraging perseverance time If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? Isak Dinesen song lying children Be not afraid of absurdity; do not shrink from the fantastic. Within a dilemma, choose the most unheard-of, the most dangerous solution. Be brave, be brave. Isak Dinesen fantastic dangerous brave "Do you know a cure for me?" Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water." Salt water?" I asked him. Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea". Isak Dinesen sweat sea water People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. Isak Dinesen dream sleep heart A giraffe is so much a lady that one refrains from thinking of her legs, but remembers her as floating over the plains in long garb, draperies of morning mist her mirage. Isak Dinesen morning long thinking Love, with very young people, is a heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst, or to get drunk; it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine. Isak Dinesen later-in-life wine people
