Henrik Ibsen Quotes
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The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom-they are the pillars of society.
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To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?
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Nothing is impossible that one desires with an indomitable will.
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A friend married is a friend lost.
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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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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!
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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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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.
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Marriage is something you have to give your whole mind to.
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Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.
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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 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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But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.
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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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Most critical fault-finding, when reduced to its essentials, simply amounts to reproach of the author because he is himself -- thinks, feels, sees, and creates, as himself, instead of seeing and creating in the way the critic would have done.
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In great memories there lies the seed of growth.
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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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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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An unromantic poem I mean to make, of one who only lives for duty's sake.
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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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I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.
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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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If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.
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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.