Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark usually called H.C. Andersen was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his fairy tales. These Hans Christian Andersen quotes will motivate you in life.
Best Hans Christian Andersen Quotes
- “The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“Where words fail, music speaks.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “We cannot expect to be happy always … by experiencing evil as well as good we become wise.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Each time I think that the song is ended … something higher and better begins for me.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “But shouldn’t all of us on earth give the best we have to others and offer whatever is in our power?” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “My life will be the best illustration of all my work.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“The sun shines upon good and bad alike.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “”Does all the beauty of the world stop when you die?” “No,” said the Old Oak; “it will last much longer – longer than I can even think of.” “Well, then,” said the little May-fly, “we have the same time to live; only we reckon differently.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “One cannot quite trust the word of potted flowers,” thought the butterfly; “they have too much to do with men.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen Quotes
- “Time is so fleeting that if we do not remember God in our youth, age may find us incapable of thinking of him.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Some are created for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do without altogether.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“A human life is a story told by God.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “In the days of Moses and the prophets such a man would have been counted among the wise men of the land; in the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake.” ~ 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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“To travel is to live.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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!” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer’s evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“Well, it’s not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen Quotes
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“I covet honour in the same way as a miser covets gold.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with short steps.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “He found whole figures which represented a written word, but he never could manage to represent just the word he wanted – that word was ‘eternity’, and the Snow Queen had said, “If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new skates.” But he could not find it out.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more!” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “The naive was only a part of my fairy tales; humor was the real salt in them.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born … Some call me the Elder Granny, others – the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “We haven’t yet got eyes that can gaze into all the splendor that God has created, but we shall get them one day; and that will be the finest fairy tale of all, for we shall be in it ourselves.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“It is the power of thought that gives man power over nature.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Eighty percent of our criminals come from unsympathetic homes.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “I know what you want. It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. – The sea witch.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “I only appear to be dead.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “But the Emperor has nothing at all on!” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
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“I never dreamed of so much happiness when I was the Ugly Duckling!” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “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.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Every step you take will feel as if you were treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow. I am willing to help you, but are you willing to suffer all this?” “Yes,” the little mermaid said in a trembling voice, as she thought of the Prince and of gaining a human soul.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Every town, like every man, has its own countenance; they have a common likeness and yet are different; one keeps in his mind all their peculiar touches.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
- “Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
