One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it.
There is a very close connection between being a doctor and being a politician ... The doctor first tries to prevent illness, then tries to treat it if it comes. It's exactly the same as what you try to do as a politician, but with regard to society.
If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway; and if there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.
You see, it’s part of the process you go through: the longer the hair and the beard, the more Beaujolais you drink. It’s stage three of the seven stages of song writing.
Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!
We have been given an assignment as a monarchy, and we do as well as we can ... We try to be as little populistic as possible. We don't do anything on the spur of the moment to win an opinion poll, or short-term popularity.
I live in Bergen, my band are in Finland and I spent a long time going to clubs and hanging out in London. I guess they’re all in the DNA of the record.
Yesterday, on the 17th of May, we Norwegians celebrated our constitution day to mark the signing of Norway's constitution in 1814. Maybe it is because we are a small country: In Norway this is an important day. All over Norway children have paraded in their best clothes to the music of thousands of marching bands, and countless speeches have been made to remind each others, as fellow Norwegians, that freedom should never be taken for granted.
[...] and you, my compatriots in Norway, have no grounds for complaining that we have forgotten the dear, familiar and specific character with which God has endowed our land and our nation. That is so firmly entrenched in our being that it finds expression, whether we like it or not. Do not, therefore, insult us further with such [an accusation]; it hurts our feelings, and thereby proves how unfounded it is, for otherwise it would be easy to treat it with indifference.