Rob the average man of his illusion and you rob him of his happiness at one stroke.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Illusion
The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Independence, Self-reliance, Solitude, Self-Discovery
Marriage! Nothing else demands so much from a man!
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Marriage
The Bible speaks of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness: this great unpardonable sin is the murder of the “love-life” in a human being.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Love
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong.
—Henrik Ibsen
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Community, Society
A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there’s no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it’s an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Marriage
In your power, all the same. Subject to your will and your demands. No longer free! No! That’s a thought I’ll never endure! Never.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Marriage, Wives
This is life! It can harden and it can exalt.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Happiness
Don’t use that foreign word “ideals.” We have that excellent native word “lies.”
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Idealism
Really to sin you have to be serious about it.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Sin
Marriage is a very sea of calls and claims, which have but little to do with love.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Marriage
Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your “emancipation.” You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields—discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West—superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Women, Feminism
If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Confidence
The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.
—Henrik Ibsen
What’s a man’s first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Being Ourselves
A forest bird never wants a cage.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Freedom, Birds
It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing raveled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Principles
These heroes of finance are like beads on a string; when one slips off, all the rest follow.
—Henrik Ibsen
What we have inherited from our fathers and mothers is not all that ‘walks in us.’ There are all sorts of dead ideas and lifeless old beliefs. They have no tangibility, but they haunt us all the same and we can not get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. Ghosts must be all over the country, as thick as the sands of the sea.
—Henrik Ibsen
Castles in the air – -they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build as well.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Dreams
The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population—the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it’s the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it’s the fools that form the overwhelming majority.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Democracy
The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Liberalism
And what if I did run my ship aground; oh, still it was splendid to sail it.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Mistakes, Failures, Adventure, Opportunity
Different people have different duties assigned to them by Nature; Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this, the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Appropriateness, Aptness, Nature, Success
Labor and trouble one can always get through alone, but it takes two to be glad.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Happiness
Ive had the best possible chance of learning that what the working-classes really need is to be allowed some part in the direction of public affairs, Doctorto develop their abilities, their understanding and their self-respect.
—Henrik Ibsen
The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom-they are the pillars of society.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Society, Truth
The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent men must wage war. Who is it that constitutes the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk, or the stupid? 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.
—Henrik Ibsen
A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.
—Henrik Ibsen
Topics: Appreciation
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Ole Hallesby Norwegian Theologian
- William Congreve English Dramatist
- Colley Cibber English Playwright
- Lope de Vega Spanish Playwright
- Edna St. Vincent Millay American Poet
- Natalie Clifford Barney American Literary Figure
- Christopher Marlowe English Playwright
- August Strindberg Swedish Playwright
- Maurice Maeterlinck Belgian Dramatist
- Bertolt Brecht German Poet
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