Ibsen Enemy Of The People Quotes

You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

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?

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing

The most dangerous enemy of the truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority

I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right.

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 ...

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.

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.

Oh yes, right—right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?

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.

But a scientific man must live in a little bit of style.

The idol of Authority must be shattered in this town.

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth, Author

The right? Ah, what does it help to be in the right if you don't have any power?

Dr. Stockmann. I have already told you that what I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately--the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the hole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.

A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years—seldom longer.

Dr. Stockmann: Yes, I can afford it now. Katherine tells me I earn almost as much as we spend. Peter Stockmann: Almost—yes!

A community is like a ship; every one ought to be prepared to take the helm.

Nikada ne treba oblačiti svoje najbolje odelo kad čovek ide da se bori za slobodu i istinu.

The individual ought undoubtedly to acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community—or, to speak more accurately, to the authorities who have the care of the community’s welfare.

the strongest man is he who stands most alone

...det kan da vel, for fanden, aldri i evighet være rett at de dumme skal herske over de kloke.

O inimigo mais perigoso da verdade e da liberdade, entre nós, é a enorme e silenciosa maioria dos meus concidadãos.

Existe uma distância terrível entre o homem “de raça” e o homem “vira-lata”.

Ouçam com atenção o que lhes vou dizer: o homem mais poderoso que há no mundo é o que está mais só.

A maioria nunca tem razão! Esta é a maior mentira social que já se disse! Todo o cidadão livre deve protestar contra ela. Quem se constitui na maioria dos habitantes de um país? As pessoas inteligentes ou os imbecis? Estamos todos de acordo, penso eu, em afirmar que, em se considerando o globo terrestre como um todo, os imbecis formam uma maioria esmagadora.

The worst is that, from one end of this country to the other, every man is the slave of his Party.

for my subject is precisely this, that it is the masses, the majority—this infernal compact majority—that poisons the sources of our moral life and infects the ground we stand on.

A party chief is like a wolf – a ravenous grey-foot – who needs so and so many livestock each year if he's to exist.

I stick to my tea and bread and butter. It is much more wholesome in the long run—and a little more economical, too.

Å, allmennheten behøver slett ingen nye tanker. Allmenheten er best tjent med de gamle, gode, anerkjente tanker den allerede har.

The responsibility of the individual is always lessened when he has others with him

The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority—yes, the damned compact Liberal majority—that is it! Now you know!

A free man has no right to soil himself with filth; he has no right to behave in a way that would justify his spitting in his own face.

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E eis a situação a que esses burocratas podem reduzir um homem de bem!

La plebe es la materia prima con que el pueblo fabrica hombres.

Uno nunca debería ponerse su mejor pantalón para luchar por la libertad y la verdad.

El hombre más poderoso del mundo... es el que está más solo.

The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone” Henrik Ibsen “An Enemy of the People

The majority has might on its side — unfortunately; but right it has not. ...The minority is always in the right.

I think we’ve got to agree that, all over this whole wide earth, the stupid are in a fearsomely overpowering majority.

It is the majority in our community that denies me my freedom and seeks to prevent my speaking the truth.

I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth. What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports?

I do not believe there is any other well-ascertained truth except this, that no community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such old marrowless truths.

The whole crowd (shouting). Yes, yes! He is an enemy of the people! He hates his country! He hates his own people!

The worthy man spoke the truth. A party is like a sausage machine; it mashes up all sorts of heads together into the same mincemeat—fatheads and blockheads, all in one mash!

It is this, let me tell you—that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

The thing is, you see, that the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. (An Enemy of the People, act 5)

The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.

that party programmes strangle every young and vigorous truth—that considerations of expediency turn morality and justice upside down—and that they will end by making life here unbearable.

You work for me, Thomas! And you'll find in your contract that one of the rules is that you're not allowed to contradict a superior.' "What? I'm a doctor. I'm a man of science! Not a, a, a..." "The world doesn't revolve around your science! It's about money!

DR. STOCKMANN. I have already told you that what I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately—the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the whole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.

اکثریت هیچ وقت حق ندارد - می‌گویم هیچ وقت! این یکی از آن دروغ‌هایی است که افراد آزاد فکر فهیم باید با آن مبارزه کنند. اکثریت افراد یک کشور کی‌ها هستند؟ مردم هوشیارند یا جماعت کودن؟ تصور نمی‌کنم شکی داشته باشید که فعلاً در سراسر جهان، اکثریت مطلق دایم‌التزاید، با مردم کودن و کم‌فهم است! شما هم نمی‌توانید مدعی شوید که حکومت جماعت کودن بر اقلیت فهیم حق است! (غوغا و فریاد جمعیت) اه، بله! می‌دانم که شما می‌توانید دهان مرا ببندید، ولی نمی‌توانید جوابی به من بدهید! بدبختانه اکثریت زور دارد، اما هرگز حق ندارد. من حق دارم. حق با من و معدودی افراد متفرق دیگر است، حق همیشه با اقلیت است.

I have been threatened first with one thing and then with another; they have tried to rob me of my most elementary rights as a man— BILLING. What! Your rights as a man! DR. STOCKMANN. —they have tried to degrade me, to make a coward of me, to force me to put personal interests before my most sacred convictions.

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.

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. But good Lord!—you can never pretend that it is right that the stupid folk should govern the clever ones!

I am thinking of the few, the scattered few amongst us, who have absorbed new and vigorous truths. Such men stand, as it were, at the outposts, so far ahead that the compact majority has not yet been able to come up with them; and there they are fighting for truths that are too newly born into the world of consciousness to have any considerable number of people on their side as yet.

DR. STOCKMANN. The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent man 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.

ASLAKSEN. I am a man with a conscience, and that is the whole matter. If you attack the government, you don't do the community any harm, anyway; those fellows pay no attention to attacks, you see—they go on just as they are, in spite of them. But local authorities are different; they can be turned out, and then perhaps you may get an ignorant lot into office who may do irreparable harm to the householders and everybody else.

I maintain that it is absolutely inexcusable in the "People's Messenger" to proclaim, day in and day out, the false doctrine that it is the masses, the crowd, the compact majority, that have the monopoly of broad-mindedness and morality—and that vice and corruption and every kind of intellectual depravity are the result of culture, just as all the filth that is draining into our Baths is the result of the tanneries up at Molledal!

The majority never has right on its side. Never I say! That is one of the social lies that a free, thinking man is bound to rebel against. Who makes up the majority in any given country? Is it the wise men or the fools? I think we must agree that the fools are in a terrible overwhelming majority, all the wide world over. But, damn it, it can surely never be right that the stupid should rule over the clever! (An Enemy of the People, act 4)

The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom among us-Is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority . . . The majority has might-unfortunately-but right it is not. Right-are I and a few others. The minority is always right. . . I have a mind to make a revolution against the lie that the majority is in the possession of truth. What kind of truths are those around which the majority usually gathers? They are truths that have become so old that they are on the way toward becoming shaky. But once a truth has become that old, it is also on the way toward becoming a lie . . . A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen years; at most twenty, rarely more. But such aged truths are always exceedingly thin. Nevertheless it is only at that stage that the majority makes their acquaintance . . . All these majority truths . . . are rather like rancid, spoiled . . . hams. And that is the source of the moral scurvy that rages all around us...

The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom among us-Is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority . . . The majority has might-unfortunately-but right it is not. Right-are I and a few others. The minority is always right. . . I have a mind to make a revolution against the lie that the majority is in the possession of truth. What kind of truths are those around which the majority usually gathers? They are truths that have become so old that they are on the way toward becoming shaky. But once a truth has become that old, it is also on the way toward becoming a lie . . . A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen years; at most twenty, rarely more. But such aged truths are always exceedingly thin. Nevertheless it is only at that stage that the majority makes their acquaintance . . . All these majority truths . . . are rather like rancid, spoiled . . . hams. And that is the source of the moral scurvy that rages all around us... (Qtd. by Walter Kaufmann)

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.