Henrik Ibsen > Quotes

“A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“To live is to war with trolls.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools?”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are--or, at all events, that I must try and become one.”
― Henrik Ibsen, The Doll's House: A Play

“You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“Helmer: I would gladly work night and day for you. Nora- bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrafice his honor for the one he loves.
Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog?

It takes fifty years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“What is the difference in being alone with another and being alone by one's self?”
― Henrik Ibsen

“You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“Don't use that exotic word "ideals". We have a good enough native word: "lies".”
― Henrik Ibsen

“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life”
― Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts

“HELMER; But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties?

NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty?

HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children?

NORA:I have another duty, just as sacred.

HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean?

NORA: My duty to myself.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“Oh, yes--you
can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has
might on its side--unfortunately; but right it has not.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Nora: It's true Torvald. When I lived at home with Papa, he used to tell me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinion. If I thought differently, I had to hide it from him, or he wouldn't have liked it. He called me his little doll, and he used to play with me just as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house -

Helmer: That's no way to talk about our marriage!

Nora [undisturbed]: I mean when I passed out of Papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything to suit your own tastes, and so I came to have the same tastes as yours.. or I pretended to. I'm not quite sure which.. perhaps it was a bit of both -- sometimes one and sometimes the other. Now that I come to look at it, I've lived here like a pauper -- simply from hand to mouth. I've lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. That was how you wanted it. You and Papa have committed a grievous sin against me: it's your fault that I've made nothing of my life.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Mrs LINDE: When you've sold yourself once for the sake of others, you don't do it second time.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“To live is to war with trolls in heart and woul.
To write is to sit in judgement on oneself.”
― Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt

“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.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“NORA: I must stand on my own two feet if I'm to get to know myself and the world outside. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“I believe that before anything else I'm a human being -- just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Oh yes, right—right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“El hombre más poderoso del mundo es el que está más solo”
― Henrik Ibsen

“But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“To live is - to war with trolls
In the holds of the heart and mind”
― Henrik Ibsen

“It’s a release to know that in spite of everything a premeditated act of courage is still possible.”
― Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler

“You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.”
― Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts

“What sort of truths are they that the majority usually
supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are
beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in
a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“There is so much falsehood both at home and at school. At home one must not speak, and at school we have to stand and tell lies to the children.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Happiness is worth a daring deed; we are both free if we but will it, and then the game is won.”
― Henrik Ibsen, The Vikings at Helgeland; The Pretenders

“Tar de livsløgnen fra et gjennomsnittsmenneske, så tar du lykken ifra ham med det samme”
― Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck/John Gabriel Borkman

“[From below comes the noise of a door slamming.]”
― Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

“Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.”
― Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck

“The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Nicht Mord. Nicht Diebstahl, Raub oder nächtlicher Einbruch – auch Meineid nicht. Denn das alles sind ja Dinge, die man meist Leuten antut, die man haßt oder die einem gleichgültig sind und einen nichts angehen. […] Das Infamste von allem – das ist, wenn der Freund das Vertrauen des Freundes missbraucht.”
― Henrik Ibsen, John Gabriel Borkman

“Først når vi døde våkner, ser vi det uopprettelige, nemlig at vi aldri har levet.”
― Henrik Ibsen, When We Dead Awaken

“Here in the north each night is a whole winter long. Yet the place is fair enough, doubt it not! Thou shalt see sights here such as thou hast not seen in the halls of the English king. We shall be together as sisters whilst thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon the land like wild, white-maned horses—and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back—to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely songs of sorcery!”
― Henrik Ibsen, The Vikings of Helgeland

“A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years—seldom longer.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Ghosts! […] I almost think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that ‘walks’ in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“Die Flügel gespannt! Die Segel heraus
Dem Aar gleich des Lebens Meer ich durchsaus -
Lass hinten der Möwen Scharen..
Über Bord mit Vernunft, dem schweren Ballast!
Vielleicht wird mein Schiff vom Strudel erfasst
Doch es ist so herrlich zu fahren”
― Henrik Ibsen

“Vogt dig, barn, for tjernets strømme.
Farligt, farligt der at drømme!
Nøkken lader som han sover;
liljer leger ovenover.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth, Author”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Dr. Stockmann: Yes, I can afford it now. Katherine tells me I earn almost as much as we spend.
Peter Stockmann: Almost—yes!”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

“Dr. Stockmann. I have already told you that what I want to speak about
is the great discovery I have made lately--the discovery that all the
sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the hole fabric of our
civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.”
― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People