Quotes by Henrik Ibsen

"A man should never put on his best trousers when he goes out to battle for freedom and truth."

"Rob the average man of his life-illusion and you rob him also of his happiness."

"Do not use that foreign word 'ideals.' We have that excellent native word 'lies.'"

"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."

"Look into any man's heart you please, and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed."

"A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong."

"The devil is compromise."

"Castles in the air - they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build too."

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

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

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

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

"The spectacles of experience; through them you will see clearly a second time."

"A forest bird never wants a cage."

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

"A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed."

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

"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!"

"Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man."

"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."