Ibsen Quotes

“Nevertheless the severance is rather casual and it drops a stain on our admiration of Nora. Ibsen has put the leaving of her children on the same moral and emotional level as the leaving of her husband and we cannot, in our hearts, asssent to that. It is not only the leaving but the way the play does not have time for suffering, changes of heart. Ibsen has been too much a man in the end. He has taken the man's practice, if not his stated belief, that where self-realization is concerned children shall not be an impediment.”

“Ghosts! […] 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. There must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.”

“And if I am further pressed to declare straightforwardly whether I mean to disparage these authorities [who criticize Ibsen], I reply, pointedly, that I do. I affirm that such criticisms are written by men who know as much of political life as I know of navigation. (P. 56)”

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

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

“Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man.”

“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.”

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

“Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.”

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