Henrik Ibsen Quotes (61 Quotes)


    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.

    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.


    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.




    The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.


    A man should never put on his good trousers when he goes out to battle for freedom or truth.

    A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides they are not keeping anything back there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.

    It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.

    The spectacles of experience; through them you will see clearly a second time.

    So to conduct one's life as to realize oneselfthis seems to me the highest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it.

    A man should never put on his best trousers when he goes out to battle for freedom and truth.

    Oh, life would be all right if we didn't have to put up with these damned creditors who keep pestering us with the demands of their ideals

    Some day, youth will come here and thunder on my door, and force its way in to me.

    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.

    A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.


    Do you know what we are those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.

    I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!

    The man whom God wills to slay in the struggle of life - he first individualizes.


    They may soon expect the white horse at Rosmersholm now.

    In your power, all the same. Subject to your will and your demands. No longer free No That's a thought I'll never endure Never.


    A woman cannot be herself in modern society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess female conduct from a male standpoint.


    Do not use that foreign word "ideals." We have that excellent native word "lies."

    The most dangerous force to truth and freedom in our midst is the compact majority.

    The majority is never right. Never, I tell you Thats 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 I think we can agree its the fools, no matter where you go in this world, its the fools that form the overwhelming majority.


    I don't wish you anything but just what you are - my own sweet little song-bird.

    People who don't know how to keep themselves healthy ought to have the decency to get themselves buried, and not waste time about it.

    It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I wanted only to pick at a single knot but when I had got that undone, the whole thing raveled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.

    The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom - these are the pillars of society.

    One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to battle for freedom and truth.

    Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your ''emancipation'.' You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood.

    You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth.

    A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong.

    I can see him. With vine leaves in his hair.

    Deprive the average human being of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness.

    The pillars of truth and the pillars of freedom - they are the pillars of society.

    Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.


    The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority.

    In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children.

    Look into any man's heart you please, and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed.

    Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man.



    More Henrik Ibsen Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Truth - Society & Civilization - Majority & Minority - Man - Life - Liberty & Freedom - Happiness - People - World - Ideal - Lies & Deceit - Home - Time - Soul - Defeats - Literature - Communities - Sense & Perception - Animals - View All Henrik Ibsen Quotations

    More Henrik Ibsen Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - A Doll's House

    Related Authors


    William Blake - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Homer - e. e. cummings - Robert Browning - Lucretius - Henrik Ibsen - Edmund Spenser - Edgar Guest - Amy Lowell


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