Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most celebrated authors of fairy tales. His stories are known for their simplicity and imagination. He has written many stories that have since been translated into over 150 languages and have been adapted to various media including theatre, opera, film, ballet, and television. Here is a compilation of Hans Christian Andersen Quotes.
The Danish author was born in 1805 in Odense in Denmark. His father was a shoemaker and his mother was a housewife. Andersen’s early life was difficult because he had no formal education but he read books from the library at Odense University which helped him improve his literacy skills. Andersen’s father died when he was nine years old which left him to care for his family with the help of his mother.
Famous Hans Christian Andersen quotes
“Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”
“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.”
“Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more!”
“To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.”
“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
“Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence”
“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.”
“My life will be the best illustration of all my work.”
“Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.”
“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.”
“Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.”
“If you looked down to the bottom of my soul, you would understand fully the source of my longing and pity me. Even the open, transparent lake has its unknown depths, which no divers know.”
“To travel is to live.”
“Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!”
“Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, ‘I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.”
“My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident.”
“Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars.”
“Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps.”
“It is the power of thought that gives man power over nature.”
“But shouldn’t all of us on earth give the best we have to others and offer whatever is in our power?”
“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”
“Mermaids have no tears, and so they suffer all the more.”
“It was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher power.”
“Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer’s evening; the heart is filled with peace, and everything around derives a peculiar glory.”
“I never dreamed of so much happiness when I was the Ugly Duckling!”
“Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea.”
“The sun shines upon good and bad alike.”
“Well, it’s not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!”
“Each time I think that the song is ended … something higher and better begins for me.”
“Some are created for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do without altogether.”
“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.”
“I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.”
“We cannot expect to be happy always … by experiencing evil as well as good we become wise.”
“One cannot quite trust the word of potted flowers,” thought the butterfly; “they have too much to do with men.”
“There was once a merchant who was so rich that he might have paved the whole street, and a little alley besides, with silver money. But he didn’t do it–he knew better how to use his money than that.”
“No, the light is too intense; we do not yet have eyes that can see all the glory God has created. But maybe someday we will have such eyes. That will be the most wonderful fairy tale of all, for we ourselves will be part of it.”
“The naive was only a part of my fairy tales; humor was the real salt in them.”
“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; and he is the tin soldier we are going to hear about.”
“Sharp knives seemed to cut her delicate feet, yet she hardly felt them, so deep was the pain in her heart. She could not forget that this was the last night she would ever see the one for whom she had left her home and family, had given up her beautiful voice, and had day by day endured unending torment, of which he knew nothing at all. An eternal night awaited her.”
“Brave soldier, never fear. Even though your death is near.”
“And the Top spoke no more of his old love; for that dies away when the beloved objects has lain for five years in a roof gutter and got wet through; yes, one does not know her again when one meets her in the dust box.”
“I only appear to be dead.”
“Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!”
“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.”
“Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.”
“Eighty percent of our criminals come from unsympathetic homes.”