“Forget that foreign word "ideals." We have that good old native word: "lies."”
Relling, Act V
The Wild Duck (1884)
“Forget that foreign word "ideals." We have that good old native word: "lies."”
Relling, Act V
The Wild Duck (1884)
“When we dead awaken. … We see that we have never lived.”
Irene, in Act II
When We Dead Awaken (1899)
Dr. Stockmann, Act IV
An Enemy of the People (1882)
“Rank. Certainly. However wretched I may feel, I want to prolong the agony as long as possible.”
Act I
A Doll's House (1879)
Act II
Hedda Gabler (1890)
“You don't get nothing for nothing in this life.”
Dr. Rank, Act III
A Doll's House (1879)
“What's to become of the morally sound? Left out in the cold, I suppose. We must heal the sick.”
Dr. Rank, Act I
A Doll's House (1879)
“If you take the life lie from an average man, you take away his happiness as well.”
Relling, Act V
The Wild Duck (1884)
Hjalmar, Act IV
The Wild Duck (1884)
Emperor and Galilean (1873), as quoted by Lester B. Pearson in his address on accepting the Nobel Peace Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway (10 December 1957) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1957/pearson-acceptance.html
“There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.”
Torvald Helmer, Act I
A Doll's House (1879)
As quoted in The Book of Poisonous Quotes (1993) edited by Colin Jarman, p. 232.
“I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.”
Letter to Georg Brandes (3 January 1882).
“The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made.”
Dr. Stockmann, Act IV
An Enemy of the People (1882)
“The black, cold, icy water. Down and down, without end — if it would only end.”
Nora Helmer, Act III
A Doll's House (1879)
“I've the most extraordinary longing to say 'Bloody Hell!”
Nora Helmer, Act I
A Doll's House (1879)