August Strindberg quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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."

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

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

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

Autumn is my spring!

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

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

Some people seem to be born to suffer.

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.

At last everything was satisfactorily arranged, and I could not help admiring the setting: these mingled touches betrayed on a small scale the inspiration of a poet, the research of a scientist, the good taste of an artist, the gourmet's fondness for good food, and the love of flowers, which concealed in their delicate shadows a hint of the love of women

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

[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

I dream, therefore I exist.

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

We are already in Hell. It is the earth itself that is Hell, the prison constructed for us by an intelligence superior to our own, in which I could not take a step without injuring the happiness of others, and in which my fellow creatures could not enjoy their own happiness without causing me pain.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Silence hides nothing. Words conceal.

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.

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

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

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.

Sometimes not seeing things can be a blessing.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Love between a man and woman is war.

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

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

Necessity knows no rules.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

When is revolution legal? When it succeeds!