Henrik Ibsen quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Henrik Ibsen on Wise Famous Quotes.

How can I hold you close enough?

Nobody can put a character on paper without - at any rate in part and at times - sitting as a model for it himself.

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.

the strongest man is he who stands most alone

Oh, yes
you
can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has
might on its side
unfortunately; but right it has not.

A man's moral character may be completely sapped; that is the dreadful part of it.

A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years - seldom longer.

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."

Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother.

He is suffering from an acute attack of integrity.

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

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.

People so easily forget their past selves.

The strong must learn to be lonely.

I thought you understood where I'd lost what you call my heart at the time.

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

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

I'm also like a half-drowned woman on a wreck. No one to suffer with; no one to care for.

Because there is surely nothing in the world that can compare with happiness of forgiveness and of lifting up a guilty sinner in the arms of love.

To think it, wish it, even want it
but do it! No, that I cannot understand.

You don't get nothing for nothing in this life.

Most people are ennobled by the actual presence of death. But how long do you suppose this nobility will last in him?

MAIA. - all the glory of the world? Yes, you did. And all that glory should be mine, you said.

You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.

Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves.

It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life

Oh, law and order! I often think it is that that is at the bottom of all the misery in the world.

She was an extraordinary person too! Would you believe it, she cut her hair short, and used to go about in men's boots in bad weather

The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.

Everything I touch seems destined to turn into something mean and farcical.

But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.

An unromantic poem I mean to make, of one who only lives for duty's sake.

A thousand words can't make the mark a single deed will leave.

When we dead awaken ... we see that we have never lived.

Everything that I have written is closely related to something that I have lived through.

ALLMERS. No. For it is here, in the life of earth, that we living beings are at home.

The great task of our time is to blow up all existing institutions to destroy.

I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.

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.

The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.

The costliness of keeping friends does not lie in what one does for them, but in what one, out of consideration for them, refrains from doing.

To see one's goal and to drive toward it, steeling one's heart, is most uplifting.

OSWALD: [Repeats, in a dull, toneless voice.] The sun. The sun.

The idol of Authority must be shattered in this town.

I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.

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

Really to sin you have to be serious about it.

And what if I did run my ship aground; oh, still it was splendid to sail it!

I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.

The right? Ah, what does it help to be in the right if you don't have any power?

While I think of it, Mr. Werle, junior - don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.

Many a man can save himself if he admits he's done wrong and takes his punishment.

To "those about to marry," Ibsen therefore says in effect, "Be sure you are not in love!" And to those who are in love he says, "Part!

Laughter's all the damned thing's fit for.

Nothing is impossible that one desires with an indomitable will.

I have had a delightfully lonely time of it - plenty of leisure to think and think about things.

That is the accursed thing about small surroundings
they make the soul small.

The sea possesses a power over one's moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature in general can do so.

Anyone who's sold herself for somebody else once isn't going to do it again.

The devil is compromise.

The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority

I'm no longer prepared to accept what people say and what's written in books. I must think things out for myself, and try to find my own answer.

Happiness is above all things the calm, glad certainty of innocence.

About the white and shining milky way? Man may not there the milk of fortune skim, Nor is the butter of it meant for him.

Every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.

You have made an empty place within me; and I must try to fill it up with something - with something that is a little like love.

The man-at-arms is the only man.

You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.

I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell!

The worst that a man can do to himself is to do injustice to others.

Dr. Stockmann: Yes, I can afford it now. Katherine tells me I earn almost as much as we spend.
Peter Stockmann: Almost - yes!

To live is to war with trolls.

When I lost you, it was as if all the solid ground dissolved from under my feet. Look at me; I'm a half-drowned man now, hanging onto a wreck.

The younger generation will come knocking at my door.

I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.

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

What is the difference in being alone with another and being alone by one's self?

It's a release to know that in spite of everything a premeditated act of courage is still possible.

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

No, I don't think one ought to be at everybody's beck and call. Anyway, I'm not going to be.

And though I have sailed my boat hard aground,
O, it was so grand to be sailing!

If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.

KROGSTAD: The law cares nothing about motives.

NORA: Then it must be a very foolish law.

Let others emulate the eagle's flight, Life in the lowly plains may be as bright.

Marriage is something you have to give your whole mind to.

I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald.

To live is - to war with trolls In the holds of the heart and mind

You've never loved me, you've only found it pleasant to be in love with me.

These heroes of finance are like beads on a string; when one slips off, all the rest follow.

SIGURD. Man's will can do this and that; but fate rules in the deeds that shape our lives - so has it gone with us twain.

I believe that, before all else, I'm a human being, no less than you.

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.

Take the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness.

It is the small losses in life that cut one to the heart.

Werle: "I believe there is no one in the world you detest as you do me."
Gregers: "I have seen you at too close quarters.

Mrs LINDE: When you've sold yourself once for the sake of others, you don't do it second time.

Think. I dragged myself along among the precipices - and revelled in the peace and luxury of death.

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

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.

Oh courage ... oh yes! If only one had that ... Then life might be livable, in spite of everything.