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To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

Henrik Ibsen

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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Circumstance Decision Moments Victory
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Children Fake Home Lying School
What’s a man’s first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.
HENRIK IBSEN

Brief Himself Man Responsibility
Marriage is something you have to give your whole mind to.
HENRIK IBSEN

Marriage Mindset Yourself
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!
HENRIK IBSEN

Afraid Capital Education Invention Machine Myself Science
Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.
HENRIK IBSEN

Average Happiness Himself Man Stroke
A forest bird never wants a cage.
HENRIK IBSEN

Bird Cage Forest Freedom Wild
Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing.
HENRIK IBSEN

Extreme Mute Opinion Public
There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.
HENRIK IBSEN

Beautiful Freedom Home Life
I am sticking as closely to my subject as I can; for my subject is precisely this, that it is the masses, the majority
HENRIK IBSEN

Mass Myself Subject
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.”
HENRIK IBSEN

Human Myself Responsibility Role
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Fact Imagination Myself Present Willing
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Conscience Different Kind Law Man Practice Spirituality Woman
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Friendship Lying Oneself
What’s to become of the morally sound? Left out in the cold, I suppose. We must heal the sick.
HENRIK IBSEN

Cold Healing Sick Sound
To live is to war with trolls.
HENRIK IBSEN

Live Troll War
The majority never has right on its side.
HENRIK IBSEN

Majority Right Side
Every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs.
HENRIK IBSEN

Himself Man Responsibility Share Society
To die in agony upon a cross Does not create a martyr; he must first Will his own execution.
HENRIK IBSEN

Agony Death Execution Himself Willing
Everything that I have written is closely related to something that I have lived through.
HENRIK IBSEN

Close Live Myself Relate Writing
Now I am steel-set: I follow the call to the clear radiance and glow of the heights.
HENRIK IBSEN

Call Follow Glow Myself Radiance
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Fair Majority Support Truth
When we dead awaken. We see that we have never lived.
HENRIK IBSEN

Awakening Dead Live
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Life Myself Possible Realize
The spectacles of experience; through them you will see more clearly a second time.
HENRIK IBSEN

Experience Time Willing Yourself
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.
HENRIK IBSEN

Known Myself Right Yourself
The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority.
HENRIK IBSEN

Compact Dangerous Enemy Majority

To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

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To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

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