Georg Brandes quotes

Georg Brandes (1842-1927) was a Danish literary critic, philosopher, and scholar, considered a prominent figure in European intellectual history. With his groundbreaking lectures on literature and philosophy, Brandes revolutionized literary criticism and introduced the modern idea of a "superior personality." As an influential advocate of the Scandinavian literature movement, he emphasized the importance of individualism and realism in literature. Brandes's progressive ideas challenged the established norms and sparked debates across Europe. His works on Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard gained widespread recognition. Explore Brandes's impactful legacy and contributions to literature and philosophy.

I was not given to looking at life in a rosy light.

- Georg Brandes

But I did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until I approached my nineteenth year.

- Georg Brandes

But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both.

- Georg Brandes

Just about this time, when in imagination I was so great a warrior, I had good use in real life for more strength, as I was no longer taken to school by the nurse, but instead had myself to protect my brother, two years my junior.

- Georg Brandes

Being gifted needs courage.

- Georg Brandes

But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.

- Georg Brandes

School is a foretaste of life.

- Georg Brandes

Among the delights of Summer were picnics to the woods.

- Georg Brandes

When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my appearance.

- Georg Brandes

My father, though, could run very much faster. It was impossible to compete with him on the grass. But it was astonishing how slow old people were. Some of them could not run up a hill and called it trying to climb stairs.

- Georg Brandes

It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow.

- Georg Brandes

I was always hearing that I was pale and thin and small.

- Georg Brandes

I was at home then in the world of figures, but not in that of values.

- Georg Brandes

I became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer.

- Georg Brandes

The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.

- Georg Brandes

I admired in others the strength that I lacked myself.

- Georg Brandes

The Danish glee: the national version of cheerfulness.

- Georg Brandes

He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish.

- Georg Brandes

I was not afraid of what I did not like. To overcome dislike of a thing often satisfied one's feeling of honour.

- Georg Brandes

It gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother.

- Georg Brandes

That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.

- Georg Brandes

The war imbued my tin soldiers with quite a new interest. It was impossible to have boxes enough of them.

- Georg Brandes

Six hours a day I lived under school discipline in active intercourse with people none of whom were known to those at home, and the other hours of the twenty-four I spent at home, or with relatives of the people at home, none of whom were known to anybody at school.

- Georg Brandes

The person upon whom the schoolboys' attention centred was, of course, the Headmaster.

- Georg Brandes

On the whole, the world was friendly. It chiefly depended on whether one were good or not.

- Georg Brandes

I came into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry.

- Georg Brandes

I encountered among my comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from goodness, uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness.

- Georg Brandes

I did not know what it was to be happy for a whole day at a time, scarcely for an hour.

- Georg Brandes

A love for humanity came over me, and watered and fertilised the fields of my inner world which had been lying fallow, and this love of humanity vented itself in a vast compassion.

- Georg Brandes

Any feeling that I was enriching my mind from those surrounding me was unfortunately rare with me.

- Georg Brandes