Scandinavia Quotes

“It is probable, as Anthony Faulkes suggests, that the pagan religion was never systematically understood by those who practiced it. Different areas of Scandinavia worshipped different gods at different times in the pre-Christian era; the localized nature of cults and rituals produced neither dogma nor sacred texts, as far as we know. Rather pre-Christian religion was 'a disorganized body of conflicting traditions that was probably never reduced in heathen times to a consistent orthodoxy such as Snorri attempts to present'.”
― Carolyne Larrington, The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes

“Mapema, kabla ndege haijaondoka na baada ya kuagana na maafisa waliomsindikiza, Nanda aliingia katika ndege na kutafuta namba ya kiti chake. Alivyoiona, alishtuka. Msichana mrembo alikaa kando ya kiti (cha Nanda) akiongea na simu, mara ya mwisho kabla ya kuondoka. Alivyofika, Nanda hakujizuia kuchangamka – alitupa tabasamu. Alivyoliona, kupitia miwani myeusi, binti alitabasamu pia, meno yake yakimchanganya kamishna. Alimsalimia Nanda, harakaharaka, na kurudi katika simu huku Nanda akikaa (vizuri) na kumsubiri. Alivyokata simu, alitoa miwani na kumwomba radhi Kamishna Nanda. Nanda akamwambia asijali, huku akitabasamu. Alikuwa na safari ya Bama kupitia Tailandi, kwa ndege ya Shirika la Ndege la Skandinavia na Maxair kutokea Bangkok; sawa kabisa na safari ya kamishna.”
― Enock Maregesi, Kolonia Santita

“To a great extent, friluftsliv is made possible by the Swedish common law of allemansratten (the right of public access), which grants anybody the right to walk, ride a bike or horse, ski, pick berries, or camp anywhere on private land, except for the part that immediately surrounds a private dwelling. In short, that means you can pick mushrooms and flowers, as well as light a campfire and pitch a tent, in somebody else's woods, but not right in front of their house... allemansratten relies on an honor system that can simply be summed up with the phrase "Do not disturb, do not destroy," and trusts that people will use their common sense.”
― Linda Akeson McGurk

“The national curriculum for the Swedish preschool is twenty pages long and goes on at length about things like fostering respect for one another, human rights, and democratic values, as well as a lifelong desire to learn. The document's word choices are a pretty good clue to what Swedish society wants and expects from toddlers and preschoolers. The curriculum features the word "play" thirteen times, "language" twelve times, "nature" six times, and "math" five times. But there is not a single mention of "literacy" or "writing." Instead, two of the most frequently used words are "learning" (with forty-eight appearances) and "development" (forty-seven).

The other Scandinavian countries have similar early childhood education traditions. In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn't start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because "their monolithic culture values reading.”
― Linda Akeson McGurk

“To summarise, the design of Nordic tax systems has over time created a ‘fiscal illusion’, whereby the public is not aware of the taxes they are paying. One can reflect on whether it is really in line with democratic principles to raise taxes in a way such that citizens are unaware of them. Interestingly, few proponents of introducing a Nordic model of high taxes in other countries stress that such a move would require hiding the true cost of taxation from the public.”
― Nima Sanandaji, Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism

“Now is probably a good time to make my confession about Finland, our next destination in this Nordic odyssey: I think the Finns are fantastic. I can't get enough of them. I would be perfectly happy for the Finns to rule the world. They get my vote, they've won my heart. If you ask me, they should just change the word 'fantastic' to 'Finntastic.' Helsinki? Heavensinki, more like.”
― Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

“I flera hundra år hade hans förfäder sått säd. Det var en handling av andakt en tyst och mild, vindlös kväll, helst i ett litet beskedligt duggregn, helst så snart som möjligt efter det grågässen sträckt. Potatisen, det var en ny rotfrukt, det var inget mystiskt med den, inget religiöst, kvinnfolk och barn kunde vara med och sätta dessa jordpäron som kom från främmande land liksom kaffet, det var stor och präktig mat, men släkt med rovan. Säden, det var brödet. Säd eller icke säd, det var liv eller död. Isak gick barhuvad och sådde i Jesu namn. Han var som en vedkubb med händer på, men inom sig var han som ett barn. Han tänkte sig för vid varje kast, han var vänlig och undergiven. Se, nu gror nog dessa korn och blir ax och mera säd, och likadant är det över hela jorden när säd sås. I Palestina, i Amerika, i Gudbrandsdalen - å, vad världen var vid, och den lilla, lilla jordlapp som Isak gick och sådde låg i mitten av allt. Solfjädrar av säd strålade ut från hans hand. Himlen var mulen och blid, det såg ut att dra ihop sig till ett litet, litet duggregn.”
― Knut Hamsun, Growth of the Soil

“It's from Scandinavia!" This, we learned, was the name of a region, a cold and forsaken place where people stayed indoors and plotted the death of knobs.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“Ideas are like bananas. That bananas grow only in tropical regions doesn't make them any less delicious in Scandinavia.”
― Eric Weiner, The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley

“Sitting next to a woman at a dinner party recently, she had explained how stifling she found the attitude in her hometown. 'On the [Danish] west coast, anyone who even slightly broke with convention, or or showed that they had any ambition, was frowned upon,' she told me. 'People really didn't like it. Everyone knew your business, everyone had an opinion about what you should be doing. I had to get away. I came to Copenhagen as soon as I could, and don't often go back.' It is common to have such feelings about one's hometown, I suppose, but they do often seem to be particularly keenly felt by people from Jutland.”
― Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

“Finnish women are dominant,' Roman Schatz enthused. 'Traditionally, on Finnish farms the woman was chief of everything under the roof, including the males, and the men were there to take care of everything outside. No Finnish man would ever decide anything without consulting his wife. Men do the dishes. We don't have housewives in Finland - no one can afford to live from one salary. Women don't stay at home and breast-feed, they have their own careers and bank accounts. It's great - my divorce only cost me a hundred euro.”
― Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

“To achieve authentic, sustained happiness, above all else you need to be in charge of your life, to be in control of who you want to be, and be able to make the appropriate changes if you are not. This cannot merely be a perception, a slogan like the American Dream (the United States came way down on the LSE's social mobility scale, incidentally). In Scandinavia it is a reality. These are the real lands of opportunity. There is far greater social mobility in the Nordic countries than in the United States or Britain and, for all the collectivism and state interference in the lives of the people who live here, there is far greater freedom to be the person you want to be, and do the things you want to do, up here in the north. In a recent poll by Gallup, only 5 percent of Danes said they could not change their lives if they wanted to. In contrast, I can think of many American states in which it would probably be quite an uncomfortable experience to declare yourself an atheist, for example or gay, or to be married yet choose not to have children, or to be unmarried and have children, or to have an abortion, or to raise your children as Muslims. Less significantly, but still limiting, I don't imagine it would be easy being vegetarian in Texas, for instance, or a wine buff in Salt Lake City, come to that. And don't even think of coming out as a socialist anywhere! In Scandinavia you can be all of these things and no one will bat an eye (as long as you wait and cross on green).

Crucial to this social mobility are the schools. The autonomy enabled by a high-quality, free education system is just as important as the region's economic equality and extensive welfare safety nets, if not more so. In Scandinavia the standard of education is not only the best in the world, but the opportunities it presents are available to all, free of charge. This is the bedrock of Nordic exceptionalism.”
― Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

“The things of Scandinavia tend to be secret, as if they were a dream.

The Last Voyage of Ulysses”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions

“The country now has the second highest GDP per capita in the world after Luxembourg, and Luxembourg is hardly a proper country.”
― Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

“This ungodly act is simply something that Finns do, like the British and their DIY, or the French and their adultery.”
― michael booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

“It is seven months since a thirty-two-year-old Oslo man, the racist extremist Anders Behring Breivik, single-handedly doubled Norway's average annual homicide rate in one afternoon, killing a total of seventy-seven people ... From my seat in the bus nothing appears to have changed. What did I expect? That the Norwegians would have put up razor wire and enforced constant police patrols? Hardly likely in a land where the then prime minister, at the memorial service to the dead of Utoya and the Oslo bomb, gave one of the most courageous speeches in defense of public freedom I have ever heard. Jens Stoltenberg had called for 'more openness, more democracy,' at a time when most politicians elsewhere in the world would have used an attack of that nature to pledge revenge, exploit the anxieties of the electorate, garner greater authority and power, and then compromise civil liberties. His speech was a reminder that the political leaders of the north have often served as the moral compass of the world.”
― Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia