Quotes from Henrik Ibsen

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.

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.

The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority.

The younger generation will come knocking at my door.

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

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

The minority is always right.

Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.

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

Mother, give me the sun.

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.

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

Always do that, wild ducks do. Go plunging right to the bottom… as deep as they can get… hold on with their beaks to the weeds and stuff—and all the other mess you find down there. Then they never come up again.

I have another duty equally sacred… My duty to myself.

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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

These heroes of finance are like beads on a string when one slips off, all the rest follow.

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

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

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

Do you know what we are those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.

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.

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.

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