1828-1906, Norwegian Dramatist
A forest bird never wants a cage.
Henrik Ibsen – [Freedom]
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 – [Marriage]
A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong.
Henrik Ibsen – [Minorities]
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
Henrik Ibsen – [Words]
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 – [Feminism]
Castles in the air – -they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build as well.
Henrik Ibsen – [Dreams]
Don't use that foreign word ''ideals.'' We have that excellent native word ''lies.''
Henrik Ibsen – [Ideals and Idealism]
I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. 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 – [Machinery]
In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children.
Henrik Ibsen – [Wives]
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 – [Wives]
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
Henrik Ibsen – [Science and Scientists]
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 – [Doctrine]
Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace and happiness.
Henrik Ibsen – [Money]
Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
Henrik Ibsen – [Revolutions and Revolutionaries]
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 – [Health]
Really to sin you have to be serious about it.
Henrik Ibsen – [Sin]
The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.
Henrik Ibsen – [Majority]
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 – [Democracy]
The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom — these are the pillars of society.
Henrik Ibsen – [Society]
The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
Henrik Ibsen – [Self-reliance]