Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsenwas a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, The Master Builder and John Gabriel Borkman. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth20 March 1828
CitySkien, Norway
CountryNorway
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.
...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.
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.
Oh, law and order! I often think it is that that is at the bottom of all the misery in the world.
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.
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.
The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
Emperor? You old fake! / You're no Emperor. You're just an onion. / Now then, little Peer, I'm going to peel you.
One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to battle for freedom and truth.
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!
Do not use that foreign word 'ideals.' We have that excellent native word 'lies.'
The pillars of truth and the pillars of freedom - they are the pillars of society.
The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority.
Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.