Henrik Ibsen Quotes

Norwegian playwright and theatre director (1828–1906)

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Henrik Johan Ibsen (20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is considered one of the founders of Modernism in theatre.

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Pen Names: Brynjolf Bjarme

Birth Name: Henrik Johan Ibsen

Alternative Names: Henrich Johan Ibsen • Henrich Ibsen

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I believe that before anything else I'm a human being — just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.

Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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.

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.

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

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

Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog?

It takes fifty years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right.

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

To live is to war with trolls in heart and soul.
To write is to sit in judgement on oneself.

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

Nora: It's true Torvald. When I lived at home with Papa, he used to tell me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinion. If I thought differently, I had to hide it from him, or he wouldn't have liked it. He called me his little doll, and he used to play with me just as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house -

Helmer: That's no way to talk about our marriage!

Nora [undisturbed]: I mean when I passed out of Papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything to suit your own tastes, and so I came to have the same tastes as yours.. or I pretended to. I'm not quite sure which.. perhaps it was a bit of both — sometimes one and sometimes the other. Now that I come to look at it, I've lived here like a pauper — simply from hand to mouth. I've lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. That was how you wanted it. You and Papa have committed a grievous sin against me: it's your fault that I've made nothing of my life.

With me you could have been another person.

"Don't use that exotic word "ideals". We have a good enough native word: "lies"."