Henrik Ibsen

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

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't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.

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.

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.

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

It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.

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.

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

The State is the curse of the individual... The State must go! That will be a revolution which will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of the State, set up in its place spontaneous action, and the idea that spiritual relationship is the only thing that makes for unity, and you will start the elements of a liberty which will be something worth possessing.

What ought a man be? Well, my short answer is 'himself'.

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

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

It is no use lying to one's self.

Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves.

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

Each bird must sing with his own throat.

Friends are to be feared, not so much for what they make us do as what they keep us from doing.

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

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.

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."

If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.