Henrik Ibsen Quotes

116 Sourced Quotes

Helmer: First and foremost, you are a wife and mother.
Nora: That I don't believe any more. I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as you are.

Henrik Ibsen
Tho' Doubt's beleaguering forces hem us in,
Yet Truth upon the Serpent's head shall trample.
The cause of Love shall win —

Henrik Ibsen
I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.

Henrik Ibsen
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!

Henrik Ibsen
There are three Empires. First there is the Empire which was founded on the tree of knowledge. Then there is the Empire founded on the tree of the Cross. The third is still a secret Empire which will be founded on the tree of knowledge and the tree of the Cross — brought together.

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

Henrik Ibsen
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
Always do that, wild ducks do. They shoot to the bottom as deep as they can get, sir — and bite themselves fast in the tangle and seaweed — and all the devil's own mess that grows down there. And they never come up again.

Henrik Ibsen
Oh courage... oh yes! If only one had that... Then life might be livable, in spite of everything.

Henrik Ibsen
The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made.

Henrik Ibsen
Losing all was winning's cost! Eternally owned is but what's lost!

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

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

Henrik Ibsen
Mrs. Elvsted: You have some hidden motive in this, Hedda!
Hedda: Yes, I have. I want for once in my life to have power to mold a human destiny.
Mrs. Elvsted: Have you not the power?
Hedda: I have not—and never had it.
Mrs. Elvsted: Not your husband's?
Hedda: Do you think it's worth the trouble? Oh, if only you could understand how poor I am. And fate has made you so rich!

Henrik Ibsen
What ought a man to be? Well, my short answer is 'himself'.

Henrik Ibsen
Our house has never been anything but a playroom. I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Daddy's doll child. And the children in turn have been my dolls. I thought it was fun when you came and played with me, just as they thought it was fun when I went and played with them. That's been our marriage, Torvald.

Henrik Ibsen
What's a man's first duty? The answer's brief: to be himself.

Henrik Ibsen
Whether I pound or am being pounded, all the same there will be moaning!

Henrik Ibsen
I have other duties equally sacred … Duties to myself.

Henrik Ibsen
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
The thing is, you see, that the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.

Henrik Ibsen
Forget that foreign word "ideals." We have that good old native word: "lies."

Henrik Ibsen
One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands still in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by so doing that he has just lost it.

Henrik Ibsen
I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell!
God bless thee, bride of my life's dawn, Where'er I be, to nobler deed thou'lt wake me.

Henrik Ibsen
The black, cold, icy water. Down and down, without end — if it would only end.

Henrik Ibsen
Take the life-lie away from the average man and straightaway you take away his happiness.

Henrik Ibsen
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.

Henrik Ibsen
Rank.'Certainly. However wretched I may feel, I want to prolong the agony as long as possible.

Henrik Ibsen
There is a big black hat and it makes you invisible. Have you heard of that hat? You put it on and then no one can see you.

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

Henrik Ibsen