Dries van Noten Quotes

I was one of those kids who was always seeking the truth, and I first looked for truth by reading novels. It took quite a long time for me to realize there are better ways.

The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.

He that never changes his opinion never corrects mistakes and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

Like everybody, my views on many issues have changed as I have gotten older.

I'd like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever.

As I matured, I became a smarter person, a more sensitive person, a more thinking person.

I realized I can do other things. I started developing opinions on serious matters and it's not all sugar and spice.

Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher's ideals are.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom when he can no longer be led by the nose.

I was a very unpleasant young man. If I met the young Ingmar today I'd say, 'You're very talented and I'll try to help you, but I don't want anything else to do with you.

If I look over my life, every single step of maturing for me, every single one, has had the exact same common denominator: accepting what was true over what I wished were true.

For me, there is only one means of ensuring that I do not lose respect for myself: constant criticism.

Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.

Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.

I enjoy growing older and wiser and learning from my mistakes every single day.

Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion.

I would be twenty before I learned how to be fifteen, thirty before I knew what it meant to be twenty, and now at seventy-two I have to stop myself from thinking like a man of fifty who has plenty of time ahead.

It's really something for people who are approaching 30 to take a look at what that means to them. I think turning 30 is a chance to re-identify with yourself.

If you don't look at yourself and evaluate it, you instead see how the world's reacting to it.

A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his field of life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is summer time.

Time and reflection... modify, little by little, our vision, and at last comprehension comes to us.

We should always look back on our own past with a sort of contempt, as long as the tenderness is there - but please let some of the contempt be there.

I'm older and older. With any experience you have, you know more about yourself.