Sigrid Undset > Quotes

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset

“Many a man is given what is intended for another, but no man is given another's fate.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, Part 2: The Wife

“All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“Her heart felt as if it were breaking in her breast, bleeding and bleeding, young and fierce. From grief over the warm and ardent love which she had lost and still secretly mourned; from anguished joy over the pale, luminous love which drew her to the farthest boundaries of life on this earth. Through the great darkness that would come, she saw the gleam of another, gentler sun, and she sensed the fragrance of the herbs in the garden at world's end.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, Part 2: The Wife

“Feelings of longing seemed to burst from her heart; they ran in all directions, like streams of blood, seeking out paths to all the places in the wide landscape where she had lived, to all her sons roaming through the world, to all her dead lying under the earth.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“No one and nothing can harm us, child, except what we fear and love.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, Part 1: The Wreath

“Do you know who 'twas that first knew our Lord had caused Himself to be born? 'Twas the cock; he saw the star, and so he said–all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: 'Christus natus est!' "
He crowed these words so like a cock that Kristin fell to laughing heartily. And it did her good to laugh, for all the strange things Brother Edvin had just been saying had laid a burden of awe on her heart.
The monk laughed himself:
"Ay, and when the ox heard that, he began to low: 'Ubi, ubi, ubi.'
"But the goat bleated, and said: 'Betlem, Betlem, Betlem.'
"And the sheep so longed to see Our Lady and her Son that she baa-ed out at once: 'Eamus, eamus!'
"And the new-born calf that lay in the straw, raised itself and stood upon its feet. 'Volo, volo, volo!' it said.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, Part 1: The Wreath

“One cannot escape dogmas—those who hold most firmly to dogmas today are those whose only dogma is that dogmas should be feared like the plague.”
― Sigrid Undset