Johan August Strindberg (1849–1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, and writer. His satire The Red Room (1879) is regarded as Sweden’s first modern novel. He also wrote prolifically in the fields of fiction, criticism, social commentary, science, economics, philosophy, and religion.
Born in Stockholm, Strindberg was the illegitimate son of his father’s mistress, whom his father later married. Strindberg grew up in acute poverty. He tried to become an actor and failed, but his stage experience persuaded him to pursue a career as a playwright.
Strindberg focused on subjective, psychological experience as the setting for his plays. Drawing on the insights of Henrik Ibsen and the naturalism of Emile Zola, Strindberg wrote plays such as The Father (1887) and Miss Julie (1888) which depict a bitter power struggle between the sexes. Later plays such as A Dream Play (1902) were characteristically tense. His last drama, Stora landsvägen (The Great Highway; 1909,) contains many autobiographical elements.
Strindberg exerted a significant influence on modern drama as a source for naturalism, expressionism, and various experimental modes on the contemporary stage.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by August Strindberg
Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Failure
That is the thankless position of the father in the family—the provider for all, and the enemy of all.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Father, Fathers
I always disliked dogs, those protectors of cowards who lack the courage to fight an assailant themselves.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Dogs
I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it was the other side of love.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Love
Sometimes not seeing things can be a blessing.
—August Strindberg
What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writing, Writers
I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Action, Happiness
Antipathy, dissimilarity of views, hate, contempt, can accompany true love.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Hate
Friendship can only exist between persons with similar interests and points of view. Man and woman by the conventions of society are born with different interests and different points of view.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Friends and Friendship
No matter how far we travel, the memories will follow in the baggage car.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Memories
Family… the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Family
I dream, therefore I exist.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Dreams
The hood-winked husband shows his anger, and the word jealous is flung in his face. Jealous husband equals betrayed husband. And there are women who look upon jealousy as synonymous with impotence, so that the betrayed husband can only shut his eyes, powerless in the face of such accusations.
—August Strindberg
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.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Learning
Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Happiness
A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Character
Now I know the full power of evil. It makes ugliness seem beautiful and goodness seem ugly and weak.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Evil
I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.
—August Strindberg
In the old days, one married a wife; now one forms a company with a female partner, or moves in to live with a friend. And then one seduces the partner, or defiles the friend.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Marriage
Sorrow has the fortunate peculiarity that it preys upon itself. It dies of starvation. Since it is essentially an interruption of habits, it can be replaced by new habits. Constituting, as it does, a void, it is soon filled up by a real “horror vacuum.”
—August Strindberg
Topics: Sadness, Sorrow
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