Oh, yes--you can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has might on its side--unfortunately; but right it has not.
To live is to war with trolls in heart and woul. To write is to sit in judgement on oneself.
There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.
If only I could master that demon of procrastination that goes about like a roaring lion and devours all my good intentions, I should become the most punctual man in the world.
Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in my mind through and through. I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul.
To live is - to war with trolls In the holds of the heart and mind
I believe that, before all else, I'm a human being, no less than you.
Nothing is impossible that one desires with an indomitable will.
It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life
Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing
So to conduct one's life as to realize oneself-this seems to me the highest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it.
And what if I did run my ship aground; oh, still it was splendid to sail it!
I'm plotting revolution against this lie that the majority has a monopoly of the truth. What are these truths that always bring the majority rallying round? Truths so elderly they are practically senile. And when a truth is as old as that, gentlemen, you can hardly tell it from a lie.
To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?
In the decisive moment I won the victory over myself. I chose to live. And believe me, it takes courage to choose life under those circumstances.
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.
The devil is compromise.
Ive had the best possible chance of learning that what the working-classes really need is to be allowed some part in the direction of public affairs, Doctorto develop their abilities, their understanding and their self-respect.
Really to sin you have to be serious about it.
Labor and trouble one can always get through alone, but it takes two to be glad.
It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will.
The old terms must be invented with new meaning and given new explanations. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer what they were in the days of the late-lamented guillotine. This is what the politicians will not understand; and that is why I hate them. They want only their own special revolutions- external revolutions, political revolutions, etc. But that is only dabbling. What is really needed is a revolution of the human spirit.
The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools?
It is no use lying to one's self.
The starving poet business is no good nowadays.
The strong must learn to be lonely.
Money brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends.
The worst that a man can do to himself is to do injustice to others.
The spectacles of experience; through them you will see more clearly a second time.
The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
A party is like a sausage machine, it grinds up all sorts of heads together into the same baloney.
The sea possesses a power over one's moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature in general can do so.
There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying in the knowledge that a husband or wife has forgiven the other freely, and from the heart.
This is life! It can harden and it can exalt!
I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.
But 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.
If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.
The strongest men are the most alone.
When we dead awaken ... we see that we have never lived.
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.
What's a man's first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.
I go to scale the Future's possibilities! Farewell!
It's such sport with these heroes of finance: they are like beads on a string — when one slips off, all the rest follow.
Whether I pound or am being pounded, all the same there will be moaning!
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.
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.
Many a man can save himself if he admits he's done wrong and takes his punishment.
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.
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.
Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves.
There is nothing so enervating and exhausting as this hopeless waiting. I dare say this is only a transition period. I will and shall have a victory some day. If the powers that be have shown me so little favor as to place me in this world and make me what I am, the result must be accordingly.
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."
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.
Bigger things than the State will fall, all religion will fall.
The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority
Friends are to be feared, not so much for what they make us do as what they keep us from doing.
A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.
To live is to war with trolls.
Don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.
You don't get nothing for nothing in this life.
It's not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It's 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 can't get rid of them.
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'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. 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!
You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
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.
If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.
...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.
I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.
I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.
I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.
Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother.
A thousand words can't make the mark a single deed will leave.
The man-at-arms is the only man.
Happiness is worth a daring deed; we are both free if we but will it, and then the game is won.
What is the difference in being alone with another and being alone by one's self?
Oh yes, right—right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?
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.
A friend married is a friend lost.
The greatest victory is defeat.
Happiness is above all things the calm, glad certainty of innocence.
The man whom God wills to slay in the struggle of life - he first individualizes.
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog? It takes fifty years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right.
Each bird must sing with his own throat.
Poetry is to hold judgment on your soul.
Oh, law and order! I often think it is that that is at the bottom of all the misery in the world.
In great memories there lies the seed of growth.
A forest bird never wants a cage.
You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.
The costliness of keeping friends does not lie in what one does for them, but in what one, out of consideration for them, refrains from doing.
Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.
Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man
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.
Take the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness.
Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer.
I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.
What ought a man be? Well, my short answer is 'himself'.
Oh, life would be all right if we didn't have to put up with these damned creditors who keep pestering us with the demands of their ideals.
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.
It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing raveled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.
To die in agony upon a cross Does not create a martyr; he must first Will his own execution.
Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.
Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt.
...every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.
Marriage is something you have to give your whole mind to.
Helmer: I would gladly work night and day for you. Nora- bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrafice his honor for the one he loves. Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.
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.
The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.
Nobody can put a character on paper without - at any rate in part and at times - sitting as a model for it himself.
What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.
Oh courage...oh yes! If only one had that...Then life might be livable, in spite of everything.
Castles in the air - they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build too.
The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom-they are the pillars of society.
That is the accursed thing about small surroundings -- they make the soul small.
There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and another, altogether different, in woman. They do not understand each other; but in practical life the woman is judged by man's law, as though she were not a woman but a man.
There is always a risk in being alive, and if you are more alive, there is more risk.
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to fight for freedom.
To see one's goal and to drive toward it, steeling one's heart, is most uplifting.
A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.
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.
The majority never has right on its side.
The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.
Everything that I have written is closely related to something that I have lived through.
