Isak Dinesen Quotes

You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.

Isak Dinesen

• Change
• Ruin
• Worrying

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I don't have to really be in the 60s. Every time I hail a cab in New York, and they pass me by and pick up the white person, then I get a dose of it. Or when they don't want to take you to Harlem. I grew up with that.

  

  Queen Latifah
  • Time
  • Me
  • Person

• I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.

  

  B. F. Skinner
  • Mother
  • Father
  • Parents

• Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber is the greatest bad guy in a movie ever.

  

  Ike Barinholtz
  • Bad
  • Movie
  • Guy

• Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Character
  • Judge
  • Dreams

• The rehearsal is where it all happens for an actor.

  

  Wayne Rogers
  • Actor
  • Where
  • Rehearsal

• If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening.

  

  Malcolm Gladwell
  • Reading
  • Listening
  • Gift

• I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

  

  J. B. Priestley
  • Day
  • Morning
  • Waiting

• You can't take yourself too seriously; it's important to poke fun at yourself. Once in a while, it is great to show your inadequacies, too.

  

  Ram Kapoor
  • Great
  • Important
  • Fun

• It is in fact agreed that I am the plague, the cholera of the benevolent and generous men who are interested in art and that, when I show myself with my plasters, even the Emperor of the Sahara would flee.

  

  Camille Claudel
  • Men
  • Art
  • Myself

• The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.

  

  B. C. Forbes
  • Man
  • Chance
  • Luck

• What counts isn't the frame, it's what you put in it.

  

  Otto Preminger
  • You
  • Counts
  • Frame

• I have been acting since I was thirteen.

  

  Caleb Landry Jones
  • Acting
  • Been
  • Thirteen

• I was tested against the best.

  

  Rafael dos Anjos
  • Best
  • Against
  • Tested

• We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.

  

  Samuel Gompers
  • Want
  • Never
  • Results

• I was lucky that I started very young, since I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. But my father is very conservative, and he never considered fashion to be a real career but something I could pursue as a hobby. He wanted me to be a doctor, and at one point, I thought of becoming a plastic surgeon.

  

  Edgardo Osorio
  • Real
  • Father
  • Career

• I made that first record in 2008, alongside the EP, but my label at the time waited three years to release it. They thought maybe someone bigger would buy it, but they didn't, so in the end they just released it themselves.

  

  Lana Del Rey
  • Time
  • Thought
  • End

• I like the map feature on the iPhone that tells me where I am, because I travel a lot.

  

  Gary Shteyngart
  • Travel
  • Map
  • iPhone

• How can the cost of education be the cost of life? It is unacceptable; it is reprehensible that we have allowed it to fester.

  

  Obiageli Ezekwesili
  • Life
  • Education
  • Cost

• Only buy clothes that you plan to keep forever. It's important to see trends for what they are: a game.

  

  Carine Roitfeld
  • Important
  • Game
  • Forever

• Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech. Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light. The scent of grass is more luxurious than the most expensive perfume. The slow, simple observations of the peasant are more wise than the most sparkling epigrams of the latest wit.

  

  Beverley Nichols
  • Life
  • Country
  • Light

• A little shock value goes a long way in letting people know where you stand and that you care, and if you do it with a good heart it builds respect around you. You’re the guy who says stuff other people won’t. It can even make you lovable. Comedians have known that forever. The cheat becomes even more effective when you add a spoiler. By that I mean you sort of announce that you’re going to piss somebody off by saying something like, “No offense, but…” or “You may not want to hear this, but…,” then come out with the zinger. What can they do? If they get pissed, then they’re the asshole, because hey, you warned them. And if they’re an asshole, you probably don’t want to do business with them anyway, so you might as well say what’s on your mind.

  

  Brian Wong
  • People
  • Heart
  • Way

• We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.

  

  Jack Gilbert

• Change is the one thing we can be sure of.

  

  Naomi Judd
  • Change
  • Sure
  • One Thing

• You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.

  

  Isak Dinesen
  • Change
  • Ruin
  • Worrying