Top 90 Hans Christian Andersen Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “When we get to the end of the story, you will know more than you do now...”

— Hans Christian Andersen

52. “I only appear to be dead.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

53. “But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

54. “Autumn came, and the leaves in the forest turned to orange and gold. Then, as winter approached, the wind caught them as they fell.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

55. “Delayed is not forgotten!”

— Hans Christian Andersen

56. “And they both sat there, grown up, yet children at heart; and it was summer, – warm, beautiful summer.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

57. “Roses bloom and cease to be, but we shall the Christ-child see.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

58. “I know what you want. It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. – The sea witch.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

59. “Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

60. “Every town, like every man, has its own countenance; they have a common likeness and yet are different; one keeps in his mind all their peculiar touches.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

61. “Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!”

— Hans Christian Andersen

62. “It was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher power.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

63. “And the Top spoke no more of his old love; for that dies away when the beloved objects has lain for five years in a roof gutter and got wet through; yes, one does not know her again when one meets her in the dust box.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

64. “Some are created for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do without altogether.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

65. “In the days of Moses and the prophets such a man would have been counted among the wise men of the land; in the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

66. “At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father’s palace as a dead man.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

67. “Eighty percent of our criminals come from unsympathetic homes.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

68. “Now he is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes hang, and in whose hand I should like to lay my life’s happiness. I will dare everything to win him and an immortal soul.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

69. “The good and the beautiful is not forgotten; it lives in legend and in song.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

70. “We have not immortal souls, we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

71. “I covet honour in the same way as a miser covets gold.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

72. “The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

73. “No death is sweeter than this, and no rose redder than the blood that flows.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

74. “And Kay and Gerda looked in each other’s eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn: “The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, And angels descend there the children to greet.” There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!”

— Hans Christian Andersen

75. “I can give her no greater power than she has already, said the woman; don’t you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

76. “You’re a fine one for tramping around,” the bandit girl said to Kai. “I’d like to know – do you really deserve to have someone run to the end of the world just for your sake?”

— Hans Christian Andersen

77. “Then he would cry, but what nobody knows nobody cares for; so he would cry till he was tired, and then fall asleep; and while we are asleep we can feel neither hunger nor thirst. Ah, yes; sleep is a capital invention.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

78. “There was once a king’s son. Nobody had so many or such beautiful books as he had. He could read about everything which had ever happened in the world, and see it all represented in the most beautiful pictures.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

79. “Superbe! Charmant! exclaimed the ladies; for they all used to chatter French, each one worse than her neighbor.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

80. “Pop, pop,” sounded in the air, and the two wild geese fell dead among the rushes, and the water was tinged with blood.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

81. “The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered in the Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst of which were deep pools.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

82. “We have no immortal souls; we have no future life; we are just like the green sea-weed, which, once cut down, can never revive again! Men, on the other hand, have a soul which lives for ever, lives after the body has become dust; it rises through the clear air, up to the shining stars!”

— Hans Christian Andersen

83. “Early in the morning, a peasant, who was passing by, saw what had happened. He broke the ice in pieces with his wooden shoe, and carried the duckling home to his wife. The warmth revived the poor.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

84. “A short time ago” – the Star’s “short time ago” is called among men “centuries ago” – “my rays followed a young artist. It was in the city of the Popes, in.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

85. “But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

86. “But these are small troubles, people will say. Yes, but they are drops which wear hollows in the rock.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

87. “Life is a faerytale written by God’s hand.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

88. “No one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit of his office.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

89. “Well, that’s not easy to answer when the question is so stupidly put...”

— Hans Christian Andersen

90. “At his next visit he fancied he must have got into a narrow needlecase, full of sharp needles: “Oh,” thought he, “this must be the heart of an old maid;” but such was not the fact;.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

91. “The sea is softer than your delicate hands, and yet it can alter the shape of hard stones.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

92. “This was the last evening that she should breathe the same air with him or gaze on the starry sky and the deep sea. An eternal night, without a thought or a dream, awaited her.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

93. “Yet still they flew on and on, higher and higher, till at last the mirror trembled so fearfully that it slipped from their hands and fell to the earth, shivered into hundreds of millions and billions of bits. And then it did more harm than ever. Some of these bits were not as big as a grain of sand and these flew about, all over the world, getting into people’s eyes. And once in, they stuck there and distorted everything they looked at or made them see everything that was amiss.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

94. “Behind each petal of the rose he had a tiny bedroom. Oh, how fragrant his rooms were, and how bright and transparent the walls, for they were the beautiful pale pink petals of the rose! All day long the little elf rejoiced in the warm sunshine as he flew from flower to flower or danced on the wings of the fluttering butterflies...”

— Hans Christian Andersen

95. “Sharp knives seemed to cut her delicate feet, yet she hardly felt them – so deep was the pain in her heart.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

96. “But if the star should set, even while I am penning these lines, be it so; still I can say it has shone, and I have received a rich portion.”

— Hans Christian Andersen