It was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher power.

How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.

Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, 'I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.

Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.

He found whole figures which represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just the word he wanted - that word was 'eternity', and the Snow Queen had said, "If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new skates." But he could not find it out.

To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.

She thought, "He whom I love more than my father or mother, he of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness. I dare do anything to win him and to gain an immortal soul.