“When we dead awaken. … We see that we have never lived.”

— Henrik Ibsen, When We Dead Awaken

Irene, in Act II
When We Dead Awaken (1899)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When we dead awaken. … We see that we have never lived." by Henrik Ibsen?

Henrik Ibsen photo

Henrik Ibsen69

Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet 1828–1906

Related quotes

“The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“In those former times we lived. Now we hardly live any more, since we have lived. They who we were are dead, for we are here.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts
Context: In those former times we lived. Now we hardly live any more, since we have lived. They who we were are dead, for we are here. Her glances come to me, but they do not join again the two surviving voids that we are; her look does not wipe out our widowhood, nor change anything. And I, I am too imbued with clear-sighted simplicity and truth to answer "no" when it is "yes." In this moment by my side Marie is like me.
The immense mourning of human hearts appears to us. We dare not name it yet; but we dare not let it not appear in all that we say.

“When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead. we should find consolation in an object that reminds you of them, something… I don't know… even an earring”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

“If a person would understand either the Odyssey or any other ancient work, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living in them, nor at the living without thinking of the dead. We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Ancient Work
Source: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XII - The Enfant Terrible of Literature

“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Source: Adam Bede (1859)

“How about we have been dead and what we must do after we die? Why we go to the churches when we are living because I think the divines and Christs are dead in the churches and provide the services, cares and merrys on our lived people. And we received the peaceful mind from them and held a better life than before.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

"The Question Mark Inside" (2008)

“Arts have died in Europe, what we see now in the name of art are the pieces of those artists who are already dead. There is no living art. We, as Turkey, should start a lively, fresh understanding of art.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

23 June 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

“We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 465.

Related topics