110+ Henrik Ibsen Quotes On Feminism, Realism And Dramatic

Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and poet who was born in 1828 and died in 1906. He is one of the founders of modernism in theatre and is considered to be the father of realism. He wrote plays like A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler and Ghosts which all explore the social issues of the time, and his works are still widely studied and performed today. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Henrik Ibsen on feminism, realism, dramatic.

Top 10 Henrik Ibsen Quotes

1. The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
2. A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
3. The sea possesses a power over one's moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature in general can do so.
4. It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will.
5. A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
6. It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
7. A forest bird never wants a cage.
8. The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.
9. ...I'm no longer prepared to accept what people say and what's written in books. I must think things out for myself, and try to find my own answer.
10. The greatest victory is defeat.

Henrik Ibsen Image Quotes

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. — Henrik Ibsen

It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will. — Henrik Ibsen

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. — Henrik Ibsen

A forest bird never wants a cage. — Henrik Ibsen

The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right. — Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen Short Quotes

• The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
• Money brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends.
• Castles in the air - -they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build as well.
• To live is to war with trolls.
• A party is like a sausage machine, it grinds up all sorts of heads together into the same baloney.
• If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.
• Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing
• The devil is compromise.
• Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves.
• The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.

Henrik Ibsen Quotes About Society

A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view. — Henrik Ibsen

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

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

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

...every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs. — Henrik Ibsen

I must make up my mind which is right – society or I. — Henrik Ibsen

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

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

Henrik Ibsen Quotes About Majority

I'm plotting revolution against this lie that the majority has a monopoly of the truth. What are these truths that always bring the majority rallying round? Truths so elderly they are practically senile. And when a truth is as old as that, gentlemen, you can hardly tell it from a lie. — Henrik Ibsen

A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong. — Henrik Ibsen

The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority — 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 am sticking as closely to my subject as I can; for my subject is precisely this, that it is the masses, the majority — Henrik Ibsen

The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent men must wage war. Who is it that constitute the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk, or the stupid? I don — Henrik Ibsen

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

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

The majority never has right on its side. — Henrik Ibsen

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. — Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen Quotes About Freedom

Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. — Henrik Ibsen

One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom. — Henrik Ibsen

There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends 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

Henrik Ibsen Quotes About Lies

The costliness of keeping friends does not lie in what one does for them, but in what one, out of consideration for them, refrains from doing. — Henrik Ibsen

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

If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug. — Henrik Ibsen

In great memories there lies the seed of growth. — Henrik Ibsen

Don't use that foreign word ideals. We have that excellent native word lies. — Henrik Ibsen

Don't use that foreign word "ideals." We have that excellent native word "lies." — Henrik Ibsen

Do not use that foreign word "ideals." We have that excellent native word "lies." — Henrik Ibsen

It is no use lying to one's self. — Henrik Ibsen

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. — Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen Famous Quotes And Sayings

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. — Henrik Ibsen

It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will. — Henrik Ibsen

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. — Henrik Ibsen

A forest bird never wants a cage. — Henrik Ibsen

The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right. — 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

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

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

Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse. — 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

If only I could master that demon of procrastination that goes about like a roaring lion and devours all my good intentions, I should become the most punctual man in the world. — Henrik Ibsen

Each bird must sing with his own throat. — Henrik Ibsen

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

To live is - to war with trolls In the holds of the heart and mind — Henrik Ibsen

In the decisive moment I won the victory over myself. I chose to live. And believe me, it takes courage to choose life under those circumstances. — Henrik Ibsen

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

A friend married is a friend lost. — Henrik Ibsen

Oh, law and order! I often think it is that that is at the bottom of all the misery in the world. — Henrik Ibsen

It is not for a care-free existence I am fighting, but for the possibility of devoting myself to the task which I believe and know has been laid upon me by God -- the work which seems to me more important and needful in Norway than any other, that of arousing the nation and leading it to think great thoughts. — Henrik Ibsen

Nothing is impossible that one desires with an indomitable will. — Henrik Ibsen

Most critical fault-finding, when reduced to its essentials, simply amounts to reproach of the author because he is himself -- thinks, feels, sees, and creates, as himself, instead of seeing and creating in the way the critic would have done. — Henrik Ibsen

Different people have different duties assigned them by Nature; Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this, the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat. — Henrik Ibsen

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. — Henrik Ibsen

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

Really to sin you have to be serious about it. — Henrik Ibsen

Labor and trouble one can always get through alone, but it takes two to be glad. — Henrik Ibsen

The man whom God wills to slay in the struggle of life - he first individualizes. — Henrik Ibsen

Bigger things than the State will fall, all religion will fall. — Henrik Ibsen

Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother. — Henrik Ibsen

That is the accursed thing about small surroundings -- they make the soul small. — Henrik Ibsen

Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer. — Henrik Ibsen

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

So to conduct one's life as to realize oneself-this seems to me the highest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it. — Henrik Ibsen

But I almost think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that “walks” in us. It is 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 cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. — Henrik Ibsen

Many a man can save himself if he admits he's done wrong and takes his punishment. — Henrik Ibsen

The man-at-arms is the only man. — Henrik Ibsen

NORA: I must stand on my own two feet if I'm to get to know myself and the world outside. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer. — 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

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

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

What we have inherited from our fathers and mothers is not all that 'walks in us.' There are all sorts of dead ideas and lifeless old beliefs. They have no tangibility, but they haunt us all the same and we can not get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. Ghosts must be all over the country, as thick as the sands of the sea. — Henrik Ibsen

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

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

The spectacles of experience; through them you will see more clearly a second time. — Henrik Ibsen

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

A community is like a ship, everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. — 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

To see one's goal and to drive toward it, steeling one's heart, is most uplifting. — Henrik Ibsen

What's to become of the morally sound? Left out in the cold, I suppose. We must heal the sick. — Henrik Ibsen

Poetry is to hold judgment on your soul. — Henrik Ibsen

There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and another, altogether different, in woman. They do not understand each other; but in practical life the woman is judged by man's law, as though she were not a woman but a man. — Henrik Ibsen

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

The old terms must be invented with new meaning and given new explanations. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer what they were in the days of the late-lamented guillotine. This is what the politicians will not understand; and that is why I hate them. They want only their own special revolutions- external revolutions, political revolutions, etc. But that is only dabbling. What is really needed is a revolution of the human spirit. — Henrik Ibsen

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

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

Mrs LINDE: When you've sold yourself once for the sake of others, you don't do it second time. — Henrik Ibsen

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

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

There is always a risk in being alive, and if you are more alive, there is more risk. — Henrik Ibsen

Marriage is something you have to give your whole mind to. — 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 in the midst of the struggle and says, I have it, merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it. — Henrik Ibsen

Oh, life would be all right if we didn't have to put up with these damned creditors who keep pestering us with the demands of their ideals. — Henrik Ibsen

Ive had the best possible chance of learning that what the working-classes really need is to be allowed some part in the direction of public affairs, Doctorto develop their abilities, their understanding and their self-respect. — Henrik Ibsen

HELMER; But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties? NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty? HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children? NORA:I have another duty, just as sacred. HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean? NORA: My duty to myself. — Henrik Ibsen

This is life! It can harden and it can exalt! — Henrik Ibsen

Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man — Henrik Ibsen

I believe that before anything else I'm a human being -- just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them. — Henrik Ibsen

The worst that a man can do to himself is to do injustice to others. — Henrik Ibsen

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

I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell! — Henrik Ibsen

You don't get nothing for nothing in this life. — Henrik Ibsen

The strong must learn to be lonely. — Henrik Ibsen

I'm inclined to think we are all ghosts-every one of us. It's not just what we inherit from our mothers and fathers that haunts us. Its all kinds of old defunct theories, all sorts of old defunct beliefs, and things like that. — Henrik Ibsen

Life Lessons by Henrik Ibsen

1. Henrik Ibsen's works often focus on the search for identity and the struggle for independence, emphasizing the importance of taking responsibility for one's own life and choices.
2. He also emphasizes the need to be true to oneself and to stand up for one's beliefs, even in the face of opposition.
3. Through his works, Ibsen encourages us to be brave and to strive for self-fulfillment, emphasizing that life is a journey of self-discovery and that we should never give up on ourselves.