Henrik Ibsen Quotes
-
There is always a risk in being alive, and if you are more alive, there is more risk.
-
But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.
-
I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.
-
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.
-
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.
-
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
-
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.
-
In the decisive moment I won the victory over myself. I chose to live. And believe me, it takes courage to choose life under those circumstances.
-
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.
-
Nobody can put a character on paper without - at any rate in part and at times - sitting as a model for it himself.
-
Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing.
-
A friend married is a friend lost.
-
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."
-
In great memories there lies the seed of growth.
-
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.
-
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.
-
You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.
-
I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.
-
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.
-
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.
-
If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.
-
What ought a man be? Well, my short answer is 'himself'.
-
To die in agony upon a cross Does not create a martyr; he must first Will his own execution.
-
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.