August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg; 22 January 1849 – 14 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and history plays, to...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth22 January 1849
CityStockholm, Sweden
CountrySweden
Some people have accused my tragedy of being too sad, as though one desired a merry tragedy. People clamor for Enjoyment as though Enjoyment consisted in being foolish. I find enjoyment in the powerful and terrible struggles of life; and the capability of experiencing something, of learning something, gives me pleasure.
When aristocrats pretend they're common people -- they get common!
When people drink, they talk, and talk is dangerous!
What people call success is only preparation for the next failure.
People are constantly clamoring for the joy of life. As for me, I find the joy of life in the hard and cruel battle of life - to learn something is a joy to me.
I do not care about my own appearance, but I would hope that people could see into my soul, and that is presented better in these photographs than in others. (On his self-portraits)
Some people seem to be born to suffer.
Family... the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
Growing old-it's not nice, but it's interesting.
Because in the midst of happiness there is always a seed of unhappiness; it consumes itself like fire--it can't burn forever, sooner or later it must die; and this presentiment of the end destroys my happiness when it is at is height.
It's risky to take anything on good faith where a woman is concerned.
Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. Anything is possible, anything can happen. On a flimsy ground of reality, imagination spins marvelous patterns.
It's wonderful how, the moment you talk about God and love, your voice becomes hard, and your eyes fill with hatred. No, Margret, you certainly haven't the true faith.
I see the playwright as a lay preacher peddling the ideas of his time in popular form.