Quotes from Hans Christian Andersen

Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on earth. The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.

Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer's evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.

Each soldier was the living image of the others, but there was one who was a bit different. He had only one leg, for he was the last to be cast and the tin had run out. Still, there he stood, just as steadfast on his one leg as the others on their two.

Then they kissed each other, and the young girl wept, and gave him a rose but before she gave it to him she pressed a kiss upon it, a kiss so tender and impassioned that the rose spread its petals.

At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.

Now I shall be of some use in the world, as every one ought to be; it is the only way to be happy.

His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.

The sun shines upon good and bad alike.

Each little princess had her own little plot of garden where she could dig and plant just as she liked. One made her flower-bed in the shape of a whale, another thought it nice to have hers like a little mermaid; but the youngest made hers quite round like the sun, and she would only have flowers of a rosy hue like its beams.

Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!

Continue ye merry notes! The evening is mild, the sea is calm and bright as any mirror.

In the middle of a garden grew a rose tree; it was full of roses, and in the loveliest of them all lived an elf. He was so tiny that no human eye could see him. He had a snug little room behind every petal of the rose. He was as well made and as perfect as any human child, and he had wings reaching from his shoulders to his feet. Oh, what a delicious scent there was in his room, and how lovely and transparent the walls were, for they were palest pink, rose petals.

Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to hear about the world of human beings up above; she made her old grandmother tell her all that she knew about ships and towns, people and animals. But above all it seemed strangely beautiful to her that up on the earth the flowers were scented, for they were not so at the bottom of the sea.

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.

"One cannot quite trust the word of potted flowers," thought the butterfly; "they have too much to do with men."

Everything you look at can be turned into a story ... you can make a tale of everything you touch.

I will bow myself before him who is influenced by a noble conviction, and who only desires that which is conducive to good, be he prince or man of the people.

There was once a bundle of matches, and they were frightfully proud because of their high origin. Their family tree, that is to say the great pine tree of which they were each a little splinter, had been the giant of the forest.

She was lying on a sofa, fast asleep. She was so very beautiful that the merchant's son was driven to kiss her. She woke up and was dreadfully frightened, but he said that he was a Prophet of the Turks and he had flown down through the air to see her, and this pleased her very much.

I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen; only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow.

The elf-maidens had already begun to dance, and they danced a scarf dance, with scarves woven of mist and moonshine; these have a lovely effect to those who care for that kind of thing.

There was once a little girl; she was a tiny, delicate little thing, but she always had to go about barefoot in summer, because she was very poor. In winter she only had a pair of heavy wooden shoes, and her ankles were terribly chafed.

But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.

The Emperor's New Clothes.