Georg Brandes
Georg Brandes
Georg Brandes, born Morris Cohen, was a Danish critic and scholar who greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism and naturalism, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and also fantasy in literature. His literary goals were shared by some other authors, among them the Norwegian "realist" playwright Henrik...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth4 February 1842
CountryDenmark
But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both.
School is a foretaste of life.
My first experiences of academic friendship made me smile in after years when I looked back on them. But my circle of acquaintances had gradually grown so large that it was only natural new friendships should grow out of it.
The appalling thing about war is that it kills all love of truth.
It is useless to send armies against ideas.
Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave.
I came into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry.
When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my appearance.
The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity....
Just about this time, when in imagination I was so great a warrior, I had good use in real life for more strength, as I was no longer taken to school by the nurse, but instead had myself to protect my brother, two years my junior.
But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.
I became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer.
He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish.
Birth was something that came quite unexpectedly, and afterwards there was one child more in the house.