Henrik Ibsen Quotes

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

You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

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?

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

It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't get rid of them.

Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

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

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

It’s a release to know that in spite of everything a premeditated act of courage is still possible.

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.

It's a liberation to know that an act of spontaneous courage is yet possible in this world. An act that has something of unconditional beauty.

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

I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.

There is so much falsehood both at home and at school. At home one must not speak, and at school we have to stand and tell lies to the children.

I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts…it is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.

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

What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.

But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.

Oh yes, right—right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?

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