Henrik Ibsen

“A talent for building children's souls, Hilde. So building their souls that they might grow straight and fine, nobly and beautifully formed, to their full human stature. That was where Aline's talent lay.”

“However wretched I may feel, I want to prolong the agony as long as possible. All my patients are like that. And so are those who are morally diseased..”

“Nóra: ...Azt hiszem, hogy legelsősorban ember vagyok, éppen úgy, mint te - vagy mindenesetre meg kell kísérelnem, hogy az legyek. Jól tudom, hogy a legtöbben neked adnak igazat, Torvald; valami olyasmi van a könyvekben is. De én nem törődhetek vele tovább, hogy a többség mit mond, s mi van a könyvekben. Magamnak kell a dolgokat átgondolnom, s tisztába jönnöm velük.”

“Nóra: Más feladat az, amit előbb meg kell oldanom. Magamat kell megnevelnem. S te nem vagy az a férfi, aki segíthetsz ebben. Ezt egyedül kell megcsinálnom. (…) Ha meg akarom érteni magamat, s az egész környezetemet, egészen egyedül kell állnom.”

“Helmer: Nem voltál boldog? Nóra: Nem; csak vidám.”

“Úgy értem, hogy papa kezéből a tiédbe kerültem. Itt te mindent a magad ízlése szerint rendeztél be, s így nekem ugyanaz lett az ízlésem, ami neked, vagy legalább úgy tettem, nem is tudom igazán… úgy gondolom, mindkettő igaz; hol az egyik, hol a másik. De ahogy most nézem, mintha úgy éltem volna itt, mint egy szegény ember, aki csak a betevő falatját keresi meg. Abból éltem, hogy mókáztam neked, Torvald. De hát te így akartad. Te és a papa nagy bűnt követtetek el ellenem. Ti vagytok a hibásak benne, hogy semmi sem lett belőlem.”

“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.”

“One's life is a heavy price to pay for being born.”

“oh, that was a terrible time for me, I can tell you. I kept the blinds drawn down over both my windows. When I peeped out, I saw the sun shining as if nothing had happened. I could not understand it. I saw people going along the street, laughing and talking about indifferent things. I could not understand it. It seemed to me that the whole of existence must be at a standstill -- as if under an eclipse.”

“A onda kad polazimo, i kad stavljam šal oko tvojih nježnih, mladenačkih ramena - na taj divni zatiljak - onda zamišljam da si ti moja mlada nevjesta i da upravo dolazimo iz crkve, da te po prvi put vodim u svoj stan, da sam po prvi put nasamo s tobom - sasvim sam s tobom, ti mlada, ustreptala ljepotice! Čitavo ovo veče bila si moja čežnja.”

“Odlazak uvijek mora biti efektan.”

“Zar nije neobično dražesna? To je bilo mišljenje i čitavog društva. Ali užasno je tvrdoglavo - to slatko malo stvorenje.”

“Everything I touch seems destined to turn into something mean and farcical.”

“I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.”

“She was an extraordinary person too! Would you believe it, she cut her hair short, and used to go about in men’s boots in bad weather”

“O talento não é um direito, é uma obrigação”

“A party is like a sausage machine, it grinds up all sorts of heads together into the same baloney ...”

“I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is. ... When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me.”

“Cage an eagle and it will bite at the wires, be they ofiron or of gold.”

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

“El hombre más poderoso del mundo es el que está más solo”

“Mrs LINDE: When you've sold yourself once for the sake of others, you don't do it second time.”

“You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.”

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

“Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing”

“The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority”

“It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life”

“[From below comes the noise of a door slamming.]”

“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.”

“HELMER: But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties?NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty?HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children?NORA: I have another duty, just as sacred.HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean?NORA: My duty to myself.”

“NORA: I must stand on my own two feet if I'm to get to know myself and the world outside. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.”

“Nora: It's true Torvald. When I lived at home with Papa, he used to tell me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinion. If I thought differently, I had to hide it from him, or he wouldn't have liked it. He called me his little doll, and he used to play with me just as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house -Helmer: That's no way to talk about our marriage!Nora [undisturbed]: I mean when I passed out of Papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything to suit your own tastes, and so I came to have the same tastes as yours.. or I pretended to. I'm not quite sure which.. perhaps it was a bit of both -- sometimes one and sometimes the other. Now that I come to look at it, I've lived here like a pauper -- simply from hand to mouth. I've lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. That was how you wanted it. You and Papa have committed a grievous sin against me: it's your fault that I've made nothing of my life.”

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

“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.”

“Hør, skulde det nu ikke være paa Tide at kaste Masken?”

“I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.”

“To live is - to war with trolls In the holds of the heart and mind”

“Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.”

“Here in the north each night is a whole winter long. Yet the place is fair enough, doubt it not! Thou shalt see sights here such as thou hast not seen in the halls of the English king. We shall be together as sisters whilst thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon the land like wild, white-maned horses—and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back—to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely songs of sorcery!”

“Happiness is worth a daring deed; we are both free if we but will it, and then the game is won.”

“Think, Dagny, what it is to sit by the window in the eventide and hear the kelpie wailing in the boat-house; to sit waiting and listening for the dead men's ride to Valhal; for their way lies past us here in the north. They are the brave men that fell in fight, the strong women that did not drag out their lives tamely, like thee and me; they sweep through the storm-night on their black horses, with jangling bells! Ha, Dagny! think of riding the last ride on so rare a steed!”

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

“A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years—seldom longer.”

“Oh yes, right—right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?”

“The idol of Authority must be shattered in this town.”

“There is so much falsehood both at home and at school. At home one must not speak, and at school we have to stand and tell lies to the children.”

“Dr. Stockmann: Yes, I can afford it now. Katherine tells me I earn almost as much as we spend. Peter Stockmann: Almost—yes!”

“But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.”

“Det er just den rette oprørsånd at kræve lykken her i livet. Hvad ret har vi mennesker til lykken?”

“You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”