“Never do hymns seem so long as in the days of childhood, never is their world and their language so alien to the soul. In old age the opposite is true, the hours are then too short for the hymns.”

—  Halldór Laxness

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book One, Part II: Free of Debt

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Never do hymns seem so long as in the days of childhood, never is their world and their language so alien to the soul. …" by Halldór Laxness?
Halldór Laxness photo
Halldór Laxness 216
Icelandic author 1902–1998

Related quotes

Will Durant photo

“Childhood may be defined as the age of play; therefore some children are never young, and some adults are never old.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 1 : Our life begins

Jack London photo

“Age is never so old as youth would measure it.”

Jack London book The Wit of Porportuk

"The Wit of Porportuk" in The Best Short Stories of Jack London (1962) ISBN 0-449-30053-6

George Herbert photo

“The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords
If when the soul unto the lines accords.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

The Temple (1633), A True Hymn

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Oh, weary day that seemed so long!
Oh, hours that dragged their weight along!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Romila Thapar photo

“References to what have been interpreted as configurations of stars have been used to suggest dates of about 4000 BC for these hymns”, .... [but] “planetary positions could have been observed in earlier times and such observations been handed down as part of an oral tradition”, [so that they] “do not constitute proof of the chronology of the Vedic hymns.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Romila Thapar: “The Perennial Aryans”, Seminar, December 1992., quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate https://web.archive.org/web/20100412074243/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

Apuleius photo

“And thus He will bring back His world to its former aspect, so that the Cosmos will once more be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker and restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by the men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing.”

Apuleius (125–170) Berber prose writer in Latin

The Prophecy of Hermes Trismegistus

José Saramago photo

“It’s is the old who age a day every hour”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 85 (Vintage 2003)

Harold Lloyd photo

“My humor was never cruel or cynical. I just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, too.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

December 1970, four months before his death http://haroldlloyd.us/the-life/the-biography-of-harold-clayton-lloyd/

John Heywood photo

“Be the day never so long,
Evermore at last they ring to evensong.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part II, chapter 7.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Richard Stallman photo

“I thought of her as my childhood sweetheart, the idea being you're never too old to have one.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

Related topics