August Strindberg Quotations

That is the thankless position of the father in the family-the provider for all, and the enemy of all.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

People who keep dogs are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.

People are constantly clamoring for the joy of life. As for me, I find the joy of life in the hard and cruel battle of life - to learn something is a joy to me.

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.

A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life.

I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it was the other side of love.

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

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.

What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them.

Growing old-it's not nice, but it's interesting.

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.

It's risky to take anything on good faith where a woman is concerned.

Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. Anything is possible, anything can happen. On a flimsy ground of reality, imagination spins marvelous patterns.

It's wonderful how, the moment you talk about God and love, your voice becomes hard, and your eyes fill with hatred. No, Margret, you certainly haven't the true faith.

I see the playwright as a lay preacher peddling the ideas of his time in popular form.

The further from one another, the nearer one can be.

I, too, am beginning to feel an immense need to become a savage and create a new world.

It's terribly hard to be married ... harder than anything else. I think you have to be an angel.

Family . . . the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.

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.

When is revolution legal? When it succeeds!

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.

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

What is economics? A science invented by the upper class in order to acquire the fruits of the labor of the underclass

In the old days, one married a wife; now one forms a company with a female partner, or moves in to live with a friend. And then one seduces the partner, or defiles the friend.

God preserve us from writers who regurgitate what they have learnt from books! It is people's secrets we want to know - it is the natural history of the human heart that we have been trying to put down for a thousand years and everyone must and can leave their contribution.

I've thought of becoming a photographer! To save my talent as a writer.

There comes a moment... When imagination gives out and Reality leaps forth. It is frightful!

[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

Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad.

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

Some people have accused my tragedy of being too sad, as though one desired a merry tragedy. People clamor for Enjoyment as though Enjoyment consisted in being foolish. I find enjoyment in the powerful and terrible struggles of life; and the capability of experiencing something, of learning something, gives me pleasure.

When aristocrats pretend they're common people -- they get common!

When people drink, they talk, and talk is dangerous!

Love between a man and woman is war.

What people call success is only preparation for the next failure.

Necessity knows no rules.

Meeting each other and leaving each other. Leaving and meeting. That's what life is!

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

He saw the cause of his unhappiness in the family--the family as a social institution, which does not permit the child to become an independent individual at the proper time.

Those who won't accept evil never get anything good.

Silence hides nothing. Words conceal.

The hood-winked husband shows his anger, and the word jealous is flung in his face. Jealous husband equals betrayed husband. And there are women who look upon jealousy as synonymous with impotence, so that the betrayed husband can only shut his eyes, powerless in the face of such accusations.

I do not care about my own appearance, but I would hope that people could see into my soul, and that is presented better in these photographs than in others. (On his self-portraits)

The will ... is the driving force of the mind. If it's injured, the mind falls to pieces.

The world, life and human beings are only an illusion, a phantom, a dream image.

When I free my body from its clothes, from all their buttons, belts, and laces, it seems to me that my soul takes a deeper, freer breath.

Sometimes not seeing things can be a blessing.

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

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

I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life, and my pleasure comes from learning something.

No matter how far we travel, the memories will follow in the baggage car.

On the much revered family of North American mythology - and a metaphor for the Ruling Alliance: Sacred family! .... The supposed home of all the virtues, where innocent children are tortured into their first falsehoods, where wills are broken by parental tyranny, and self-respect smothered by crowded, jostling egos.

I love her and she loves me, and we hate each other with a wild hatred born of love.

if you are afraid of loneliness, don't get married

There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.

I prefer silence. Then you can hear thoughts and see into the past. In silence you can’t hide anything … as you can in words.

Some people seem to be born to suffer.

I dream, therefore I exist.

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

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it.

Family... the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.

Society is madhouse whose wardens are the officials and the police