Henrik Ibsen Quotes
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I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell!
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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.
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...every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.
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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.
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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.
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It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
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I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.
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In great memories there lies the seed of growth.
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If only I could master that demon of procrastination that goes about like a roaring lion and devours all my good intentions, I should become the most punctual man in the world.
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Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing.
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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.
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Nobody can put a character on paper without - at any rate in part and at times - sitting as a model for it himself.
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I'm plotting revolution against this lie that the majority has a monopoly of the truth. What are these truths that always bring the majority rallying round? Truths so elderly they are practically senile. And when a truth is as old as that, gentlemen, you can hardly tell it from a lie.
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A friend married is a friend lost.
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Helmer: "Before all else you are a wife and a mother." Nora: "That I no longer believe. I believe that before all else I am a human being."
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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.
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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.
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If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.
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Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in my mind through and through. I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul.
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You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.
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There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.
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It is not for a care-free existence I am fighting, but for the possibility of devoting myself to the task which I believe and know has been laid upon me by God -- the work which seems to me more important and needful in Norway than any other, that of arousing the nation and leading it to think great thoughts.
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I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.
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The man-at-arms is the only man.