Ghosts Ibsen Quotes

It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness 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 am half inclined to think we are all ghosts…it is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.

I thought you understood where I'd lost what you call my heart at the time.

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.

OSWALD: [Repeats, in a dull, toneless voice.] The sun. The sun.

People so easily forget their past selves.

Ja, De tvang meg inn under det som De kalte plikt og skyldighet; da De lovpriste som rett og riktig hva hele mitt sinn opprørte seg imot noe vederstyggelig. Da var det jeg begynte å se Deres lærdomme efter i sømmene. Jeg ville bare pille ved en eneste knute; men da jeg hadde fått den løst, så raknet det opp alt sammen. Og så skjønte jeg at det var maskinsøm.

OSWALD: For I'm not so afraid of death--though I should like to live as long as I can. MRS. ALVING: Yes, yes, Oswald, you must! OSWALD: But this is so unutterably loathsome.

What right have we human beings to happiness?

OSWALD: Is it very late, mother? MRS. ALVING: It is early morning. [She looks out through the conservatory.] The day is dawning over the mountains. And the weather is clearing, Oswald. In a little while you shall see the sun. OSWALD: I'm glad of that. Oh, I may still have much to rejoice in and live for--

I am frightened, because there is in me something ghostlike from which I can never free myself.

But our home has never been anything but a playroom. I've been your doll-wife, just as I used to be papa's doll-child. And the children have been my dolls. I used to think it was fun when you came in and played with me, just as they think it's fun when I go in and play games with them. That's all our marriage has been, Torvald.

Gjengangeraktig. Da jeg hørte Regine og Osvald der inne, var det som jeg så gjengangere for meg. Men jeg tror nesten vi er gjengangere alle sammen, pastor Manders. Det er ikke bare det vi har arvet fra far og mor som går igjen i oss. Det er alle slags gamle avdøde meninger og alskens gammel avdød tro og slikt noe. Det er ikke levende i oss; men det sitter i allikevel, og vi kan ikke bli det kvitt.

io credo che anche noi, tutti noi non siamo nient'altro che degli spettri... in noi continua a circolare e a scorrere e a vivere non soltanto ciò che abbiamo ereditato dai nostri genitori, dico il sangue paterno e materno, ma anche tutti i pensieri immaginabili che sono già stati pensati, le vecchie credenze morte e sepolte, ogni specie di cose antiche e defunte a cui un tempo si è prestato fede e così via, in una catena senza fine. Fantasmi senza vita che però si annidano nel nostro sangue, e che noi non possiamo scacciare. Basta che io prenda un giornale, e mi metta a leggere, e mi sembra di vedere degli spettri che scivolano e sgusciano fra le righe... ah, devono essere tanti, innumerevoli come i granelli di sabbia nel mare... e noi tutti viviamo nell'ombra, timorosi della luce, della chiarezza, della verità..

Znate Manderse, ja gotovo verujem da smo svi mi aveti. Ne kreće se u nama samo ono što smo nasledili od oca i majke. To su i svi mogući i stari i mrtvi nazori, svakakva stara i mrtva verovanja itd. To ne živi u nama, ali nam leži u krvi i ne možemo ga se osloboditi. Kad god uzmem novine u ruke i čitam ih, čini mi se kao da se aveti šunjaju između redova. Mora da svuda na zemlji žive aveti. Mora da ih im toliko mnogo, koliko i peska u moru. I zato se svi mi tako bedno plašimo svetla, svi redom. Aveti

Theist religions, such as biblical Judaism, justified the agricultural economy through new cosmological myths. Animist religions had previously depicted the universe as a grand Chinese opera with a limitless cast of colourful actors. Elephants and oak trees, crocodiles and rivers, mountains and frogs, ghosts and fairies, angels and demons – each had a role in the cosmic opera. Theist religions rewrote the script, turning the universe into a bleak Ibsen drama with just two main characters: man and God. The

In An Enemy of the People, speaking the language of comic exaggeration through the mouth of his spokesman, the idealist Doctor Thomas Stockmann, Ibsen puts into very literal terms the theme of the play: It is true that ideas grow stale and platitudinous, but one may go one step further and say flatly that truths die. According to Stockmann, there are no absolute principles of either wisdom or morality. In this Ibsen is referring indirectly to the reception of his previous plays. For example, the commandment "honor thy father and thy mother" referred to in Ghosts is not simply either true or false. It may have been a truth once and a falsehood today. As Stockmann states in his excited harangue to his political enemies: Truths are by no means the wiry Methuselahs some people think them. A normally constituted truth lives — let us say — as a rule, seventeen or eighteen years; at the outside twenty; very seldom more. And truths so patriarchal as that are always shockingly emaciated.

[Mutters.]

intoxicating

rendezvous's

periodicals,

[ENGSTRAND,

REGINA,

And, in the end, we must resist Ibsen's ghosts, the 'old ideas and beliefs' that cage us in categories and assumptions about who we are and what we are capable of and blind us to the beauty of others, never forgetting that categorization refers only to the different conditions under which we live; it doesn't capture the essence of who we are.