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Fredrika Bremer
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“It is quite affecting to observe how much the olive tree is to the country people. Its fruit supplies them with food, medicine and light; its leaves, winter fodder for the goats and sheep; it is their shelter from the heat and its branches and roots supply them with firewood. The olive tree is the peasant's all-in-all.”
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“Ah! the curse of slavery, as the common phrase goes, has fallen not merely on the black but perhaps at this moment still more upon the white, because it has warped his sense of truth and has degraded his moral nature. The position and the treatment of the blacks, however, really improve from year to year; while the whites do not seem to advance in enlightenment.”
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“These Americans believe that everything is possible ...”
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“I have never as yet gone a step to see a literary lion; but I would go a considerable way to see Emerson, this pioneer in the moral forests of the New World, who applies his axe to the roots of the old trees to hew them down and to open the paths for new planting.”
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“People who are so arrogant on account of their wealth are about equal in civilization to Laplanders, who measure a man's worth by the number of his reindeer. A man with a thousand reindeer is a very great man. The aristocracy of wealth is the lowest and commonest possible. It is a pity that one meets it in America more than one ought to. One can even, in walking through the streets, hear the expression, 'He is worth so and so many dollars!'”
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“I have not, in general, much belief in the ability of woman as a creative artist. Unwritten lyrics, as [Ralph Waldo] Emerson said once when we conversed on this subject, should be her forte.”
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“During my stay in Boston I have visited different churches, and it has so happened that the greatest number of them have belonged to the Unitarian body. So great, indeed, is the predominance of this sect in Boston that it is generally called 'the Unitarian city.'”
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“... for the first time I tasted this tropical fruit, which people here are so fond of. ... I could have fancied I was biting into soap. I have a notion that we shall not become very good friends, the banana and I.”
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“North America is not altogether to blame with regard to her Indians. If the Indian had been more susceptible to higher culture, violence and arms would not have been used against him, as is now the case.”
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“What a glorious new Scandinavia might not Minnesota become! Here the Swede would find again his clear, romantic lakes, the plains of Scane rich in corn, and the valleys of Norrland; here the Norwegian would find his rapid rivers ... The climate, the situation, the character of the scenery agrees with our people better than that of any other American States ...”
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“People seek for the spiritual champagne, but they mistake what it is ...”
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“People have generally three epochs in their confidence in man. In the first they believe him to be everything that is good, and they are lavish with their friendship and confidence. In the next they have had experience, which has smitten down their confidence, and they have to be careful not to mistrust everyone, and to put the worst construction upon everything. Later in life, they learn that the greater number of men have much more good in them than bad, and that, even when there is cause to blame, there is more reason to pity than to condemn; and then the spirit of confidence again awakens within them.”
Fredrika Bremer, Finnish-born Swedish writer
(1801 - 1865)