Quotes from Hjalmar Söderberg

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

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

Man vill bli älskad, i brist därpå beundrad, i brist därpå fruktad, i brist därpå avskydd och föraktad. Man vill ingiva människorna något slags känsla. Själen ryser för tomrummet och vill kontakt till vad pris som helst.

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.

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.

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

Liv, jag förstår dig inte. Men jag säger inte att det är ditt fel. Jag håller det mera troligt jag är en vanartig son än att du är en ovärdig mor.

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.

Det fattades bara, det fattades bara att jag skulle gå genom livet utan att nånsin ha varit din.

Men naturen har förlänat människan med den lyckliga förmågan att glömma. Annars skulle hon inte stå ut med livet

We want everything, we want to be everything. We want to experience all the joys of good fortune and the full depths of suffering. We want the excitement of action and the calm of observation. We want the silence of the desert as well as the noise of the forum. Simultaneously we want to be the hermit´s thought and the voice of the people; we want to be both melody and harmony. Simultaneously! How could this be possible?

There are people who have no talent for happiness and who know this with painful, implacable clarity. Such people don't seek happiness, merely to bring some sort of form and style to their unhappiness.

I've borne my isolation with me through the crowd as the snail bears its house. For some people isolation isn't a circumstance in which they find themselves, it's an innate characteristic.

Nothing diminishes and degrades a human being more than the knowledge of being unloved.

Man väljer inte sitt öde. Och man väljer lika liten sin hustru eller sin älskarinna, eller sina barn. Man får dem, och man har dem, och det händer att man mister dem. Men man väljer inte!

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.

Când vine vorba de aman?ii unei femei, se aplic? îndeob?te aritmetica negrilor australieni: ei num?r? doar pân? la trei. Tot ce dep??e?te trei se cheam? "mul?i".

Am fost întotdeauna un singuratic. Mi-am purtat singur?tatea prin mul?imea de oameni, a?a cum î?i poart? melcul casa în spinare. La unii, singur?tatea nu e o stare în care au ajuns printr-o întâmplare a vie?ii, ci o tr?s?tur? fundamental?.

Han hade en gång förlorat "sitt första hjärta", som det heter.

Och vad är månskenet? Solsken i andra hand. Försvagat, förfalskat.

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.

nu adev?rul, ci iluziile ?i fanteziile au fost for?a motrice a tuturor marilor realiz?ri ale omenirii ?i s?mân?a a tot ce numim fericire omeneasc?.

Besynnerligt, att det alltid går en rysning genom luften före soluppgången.

La moral no es más que ese famoso círculo de tiza alrededor de la gallina: sólo encierra a los que creen en ella