Henrik Ibsen Quotes
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The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.
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The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom-they are the pillars of society.
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There is always a risk in being alive, and if you are more alive, there is more risk.
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A friend married is a friend lost.
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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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But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.
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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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To die in agony upon a cross Does not create a martyr; he must first Will his own execution.
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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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Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing.
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I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell!
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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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...every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.
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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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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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To see one's goal and to drive toward it, steeling one's heart, is most uplifting.
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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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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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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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I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.
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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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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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If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.