Henrik Ibsen Quotes

Ikke tusend ord
sig prenter, som én gernings spor.

The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made.

How can I hold you close enough?

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

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

It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.

I could not endure life without work. All my life, as
long as I can remember, I have worked, and it has been my greatest
and only pleasure. But now I am quite alone in the world — my life
is so dreadfully empty and I feel so forsaken. There is not the
least pleasure in working for one's self. Nils, give me someone and
something to work for.

Norge er ikke noe godt land å ha til fedreland, navnlig ikke om vinteren.

Forget that foreign word "ideals." We have that good old native word: "lies."

You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you - or else I pretended to. I am really not quite sure which - I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.

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

Always do that, wild ducks do. They shoot to the bottom as deep as they can get, sir — and bite themselves fast in the tangle and seaweed — and all the devil's own mess that grows down there. And they never come up again.

Ja, tænke det; ønske det; ville det med;
men gjøre det! Nej, det skjønner jeg ikke!

Men are funny characters, they must always have something to bemuse them.

Sjel, vær trofast til det siste!
Seirens seir er alt å miste.
Tapets alt din vinning skapte; -
evig eies kun det tapte.