Anais Nin Quotes

1914-1977, French-born American Novelist, Dancer
quotes
15
topics
12
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“Dreams are necessary to life.”
Dreams
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
Courage
“We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
VerifiedSeduction of the Minotaur (1961), where Nin presents it as an older saying · evidenceAttitude
“I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.”
Fathers
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
MisattributedNot by Anais Nin. Earliest known source: Probably Elizabeth Appell (1984). · evidenceAction
“Woman does not forget she needs the fecundator, she does not forget that everything that is born of her is planted in her.”
Women
“Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.”
Truth
“The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation.”
Pornography
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
VerifiedDiary entries (1914-1974), March 1937 · evidenceFriends and Friendship
“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.”
Action
“Electric flesh-arrows... traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.”
DisputedNo reliable early source found for Anais Nin. · evidenceOrgasm
“A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked,”
Joy
“It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Courage
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source, it dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds, it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings, but never of natural death.”
VerifiedThe Four-Chambered Heart (1950), p. 48 · evidenceLove
“The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. Albert Einstein It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.”
Action