Henrik Ibsen Quotes

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.

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

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

It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.

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

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

Don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.

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.

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.

The greatest victory is defeat.

The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.

What's a man's first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.

A forest bird never wants a cage.

Money brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends.

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

To live is to war with trolls.

There is always a risk in being alive, and if you are more alive, there is more risk.

Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt.

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

I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.

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

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.

The starving poet business is no good nowadays.

To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

A party is like a sausage machine, it grinds up all sorts of heads together into the same baloney.

People who don't know how to keep themselves healthy ought to have the decency to get themselves buried, and not waste time about it.

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

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.

Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer.

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

Really to sin you have to be serious about it.

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

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.

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

If only I could master that demon of procrastination that goes about like a roaring lion and devours all my good intentions, I should become the most punctual man in the world.

Castles in the air - they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build too.

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

The devil is compromise.

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

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.

It's such sport with these heroes of finance: they are like beads on a string — when one slips off, all the rest follow.

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

Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

Happiness is worth a daring deed; we are both free if we but will it, and then the game is won.

The strong must learn to be lonely.

Each bird must sing with his own throat.

Friends are to be feared, not so much for what they make us do as what they keep us from doing.

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

It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will.