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

A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.

El hombre más poderoso del mundo es el que está más solo

Here in the north each night is a whole winter long. Yet the place is fair enough, doubt it not! Thou shalt see sights here such as thou hast not seen in the halls of the English king. We shall be together as sisters whilst thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon the land like wild, white-maned horses — and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back — to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely songs of sorcery!

Nora: Torvald, don't look at me like that!
Torvald: Can't I look at my richest treasure? At all that beauty that's mine, mine alone-completely and utterly.

However wretched I may feel, I want to prolong the agony as long as possible. All my patients are like that. And so are those who are morally diseased..

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

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

Tar de livsløgnen fra et gjennomsnittsmenneske, så tar du lykken ifra ham med det samme

Good god, people don't do such things!

You are a murderer! You have committed the
one mortal sin!
You have killed the love-life in me. Do
you understand what that means? The Bible speaks of a mysterious
sin for which there is no forgiveness. I have never understood
what it could be; but now I understand. The great, unpardonable
sin is to murder the love-life in a human soul.

There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.

I am not going to let myself be beaten to the ground by the dread of what may happen. Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.

He is suffering from an acute attack of integrity.