Quote

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

Henrik Ibsen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Henrik Ibsen
Age: 78 †
Born: 1828
Born: March 20
Died: 1906
Died: May 23
Artist
Author
Director
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Henrik Johan Ibsen
Henrich Johan Ibsen
Henrich Ibsen
Writing
Humbug
Lies
Lying
Write
Cannot
Nothing
Whole

More quotes by Henrik Ibsen

Image
Now I am steel-set: I follow the call to the clear radiance and glow of the heights.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog? It takes fifty years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
What's a man's first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
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
Image
I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
Friends are to be feared, not so much for what they make us do as what they keep us from doing.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
Nothing is impossible that one desires with an indomitable will.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
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
Image
Take the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
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
Image
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.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
The greatest victory is defeat.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
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
Image
I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell!
Henrik Ibsen
Image
In great memories there lies the seed of growth.
Henrik Ibsen
Image
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