Henrik Ibsen Quotes

116 Sourced Quotes

Greater things than [the State] will fall — religion, for example. Neither moral conceptions nor art-forms have an eternity before them. How much are we really in duty bound to pin our faith to? Who will guarantee me that on Jupiter two and two do not make five?

Henrik Ibsen
There is one thing I esteem higher than that; and that is for a man to be self-reliant and sure of himself.

Henrik Ibsen
The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom — these are the pillars of society.

Henrik Ibsen
I have another duty equally sacred... My duty to myself.

Henrik Ibsen
Away with the State! I will take part in that revolution. Undermine the whole conception of a State, declare free choice and spiritual kinship to be the only all-important conditions of any union, and you will have the commencement of a liberty that is worth something.

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

Henrik Ibsen
You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

Henrik Ibsen
When we dead awaken. … We see that we have never lived.

Henrik Ibsen
Erring soul of man — if thou wast indeed forced to err, it shall surely be accounted to thee for good on that great day when the Mighty One shall descend in the clouds to judge the living dead and the dead who are yet alive!

Henrik Ibsen
The State has its root in time, and will ripe and rot in time.

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

Henrik Ibsen
If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.

Henrik Ibsen
The great task of our time is to blow up all existing institutions — to destroy.

Henrik Ibsen
You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.

Henrik Ibsen
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.

Henrik Ibsen
Everything I touch seems destined to turn into something mean and farcical.

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

Henrik Ibsen
I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.

Henrik Ibsen
Castles in the air — they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build, too.

Henrik Ibsen
A thousand words can't make the mark a single deed will leave.

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

Henrik Ibsen
The younger generation will come knocking at my door.

Henrik Ibsen
The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish. The great secret of action and victory is to be capable of living your life without ideals. Such is the sum of the whole world's wisdom.

Henrik Ibsen
Oh, yes—you can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has might on its side—unfortunately; but right it has not.

Henrik Ibsen
I have already told you that what I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately - the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the whole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.

Henrik Ibsen
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.

Henrik Ibsen
And when I stood there, high over everything, and was hanging the wreath over the vane, I said to him: Hear me now, thou Mighty One! From this day forward, I will be a free builder—I too, in my sphere— just as thou in thine. I will never more build churches for thee—only homes for human beings.

Henrik Ibsen
Helmer: Before all else you are a wife and a mother.
Nora: That I no longer believe. I believe that before all else I am a human being.

Henrik Ibsen
That power which circumstances placed in my hands, and which is an emanation of divinity, I am conscious of having used to the best of my skill. I have never wittingly wronged any one. For this campaign there were good and sufficient reasons; and if some should think that I have not fulfilled all expectations, they ought in justice to reflect that there is a mysterious power without us, which in a great measure governs the issue of human undertakings.

Henrik Ibsen
Helmer: I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora – bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves.
Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

Henrik Ibsen