Two sayings I remember from my Oslo days were:
"du kommer ikke til fjelltoppen på et flatt vei" (you don't get to the mountain top by a flat road)
"kroken ma tideling krokes" (a crook must be bent early)
I'm sure these aren't quite correct - Halvor, can you correct them?
Indeed got the meaning of them right, Andy, but the wording is a little off:
Det er i motbakke det går oppover.
Hard to translate. Motbakke is uphill, so directly translated, it’s in uphill you move upwards [sic]. Norwegian
motbakke it’s literally “againsthill”, however, as if the terrain works against you. And then the saying makes sense: It’s when you’re struggling that you’re getting anywhere, moving up. Conversely, downhill is nice and easy but takes you, well, down. And anyone who has read ‘The metaphors we live by’, knows that in metaphors, up is good and down is bad. It’s said as a form of consolation in times of hardship. ‘Nothing comes free in life’ is related, I guess, but not quit the same.
Den må tidlig krøkes, som god krok skal bli has nothing to do with criminals (crooks), rather hooks. But the rest of it is correct, you need to bend early to become a good hook. Also related to the above, in establishing hard work as a prerequisite for getting anywhere. ‘Practice makes perfect’, kind of, only less direct and with more layers and meanings.