“Too much of our history will seem to have taken place in the halls of capitols, where the accusers have mostly been guilty, and so have borne witness to nothing.”

“As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing. ”

“Where you are born--what you are born into, the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own-- stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalisation have to say.”

“My men have suffered greatly (from boredom), much blood has been shed (by mosquitoes), and I have swung my ax mightily (chopping firewood). Surely we have earned our place in the annals of history—for never has there been so little war in a war.”

“Often the mass emotions are those which seem the noblest, best and most beautiful. And yet, inside a year, five years, a decade, five decades, people will be asking, "How could you have believed that?" because events will have taken place that will have banished the said mass emotions to the dustbin of history.”

“The artists of this nation - state are, taken as one historical subject, one of 'latecomers' to the smorgasbord of the artistic pantheon.Even if Sweden as a nation-state thus seems to have been excluded from the world art history its contemporary arts infrastructure presently makes the country a much more vital place of production.”