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Axel Munthe Quotes

Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe was a Swedish-born medical doctor and psychiatrist, best known as the author of The Story of San Michele, an autobiographical account of his life and work. He spoke several languages , grew up in Sweden, attended medical school there, and opened his first practice in France. He was married to an English aristocrat and spent most of his adult life in Italy. His philanthropic nature often led him to treat the poor without charge, and he risked his life on several occasions to offer medical help in times of war, disaster, or plague. As an advocate of animal rights, he purchased land to create a bird sanctuary near his home in Italy, argued for bans on painful traps, and himself kept pets as diverse as an owl and a baboon, as well as many types of dog. His writing is light-hearted, being primarily memoirs drawn from his real-life experiences, but it is often tinged with sadness or tragedy, and often uses dramatic licence. He primarily wrote about people and their idiosyncrasies, portraying the foibles of both the rich and the poor, but also about animals. Wikipedia  

✵ 31. October 1857 – 11. February 1949  •  Other names Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe
Axel Munthe photo

Works

The Story of San Michele
Axel Munthe: 15 quotes19 likes

Famous Axel Munthe Quotes

“The soul needs more space than the body.”

Axel Munthe

“My home shall be open for the sun and the wind and the voices of the sea - like a Greek temple - and light, light, light everywhere!”

Axel Munthe

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Axel Munthe

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

“In former days all animals could speak and so could the flowers, the trees and the stones and all lifeless things who were all created by the same God who had created man. Therefore man should be kind to all animals, and treat all lifeless things as if they could still hear and understand. On the day of the Last Judgement the animals would be called in first by God to give evidence against the dead man. Only after the animals had had their say would his fellow creatures be called in as witnesses.”

Axel Munthe book The Story of San Michele

Source: The Story of San Michele (1929), Ch. VII

Axel Munthe Quotes about music

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

Axel Munthe

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

Axel Munthe

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

“A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts and to the singing of a bird outside his window and to the far-away voice of the sea.”

Axel Munthe book The Story of San Michele

Preface, 1928
The Story of San Michele (1929)

“I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.”

Axel Munthe

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Axel Munthe

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

Axel Munthe Quotes

“I was not a good doctor, my studies had been too rapid, my hospital training too short, but there is not the slightest doubt that I was a successful doctor. What is the secret of success? To inspire confidence. What is confidence?… I do not know, I only know that it cannot be acquired by book reading, nor by the bedside of our patients. It is a magic gift granted by birth-right to one man and denied to another. The doctor who possesses this gift can almost raise the dead.”

Axel Munthe

“Pasteur himself was absolutely fearless. Anxious to secure a sample of saliva straight from the jaws of a rabid dog, I once saw him with the glass tube held between his lips draw a few drops of the deadly saliva from the mouth of a rabid bull-dog, held on the table by two assistants, their hands protected by leather gloves.”

Axel Munthe

“Pasteur himself was absolutely fearless. Anxious to secure a sample of saliva straight from the jaws of a rabid dog, I once saw him with the glass tube held between his lips draw a few drops of the deadly saliva from the mouth of a rabid bull-dog, held on the table by two assistants, their hands protected by leather gloves.”

Axel Munthe

“To my amazement, I have heard that there are people who have never seen a gnome. I can’t help pitying these people. I am certain there must be something wrong with their eyesight.”

Axel Munthe

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