Henrik Ibsen Quotes

Jeg har lest på trykk - og satsen er sann -
«ingen blir profet i sitt eget land».

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

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

I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are — or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.

"Out there, where the sky shines, humans say: "To thyself be true". In here, trolls say: "Be true to yourself - ish." - Peer Gynt"

I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. You are very fond, sir, of talking about the consideration we owe to the community; it seems to me, however, that the community has its duties too. 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!

Torvald: I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora — bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves.
Nora: But hundreds of thousands of women have done!

A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.

oh, that was a terrible time for me, I can tell you. I kept the blinds drawn down over both my windows. When I peeped out, I saw the sun shining as if nothing had happened. I could not understand it. I saw people going along the street, laughing and talking about indifferent things. I could not understand it. It seemed to me that the whole of existence must be at a standstill — as if under an eclipse.

I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts…it is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.

NORA: I must stand on my own two feet if I'm to get to know myself and the world outside. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.

I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are — or, at all events, that I must try and become one.

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

What ought a man to be? Well, my short answer is ‘himself’.

Brand: Svar mig, Gud, i dødens slug!
gælder ej et frelsens fnug
mandeviljens quantum satis?
[Skreden begraver ham; hele dalen fyldes.]
En Røst: [Räber gennem tordenbragene] Han er deus caritatis!