Ionesco Rhinoceros Quotes

Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other people.

DAISY: I never knew you were such a realist-I thought you were more poetic. Where's your imagination? There are many sides to reality. Choose the one that's best for you. Escape into the world of imagination.

What's chivalrous about saying you've seen a rhinoceros?

Year after year of dirty snow and bitter winds… houses and whole districts of people who aren’t really unhappy, but worse, who are neither happy nor unhappy; people who are ugly because they’re neither ugly nor beautiful; creatures that are dismally neutral, who long without longings as though they’re unconscious, unconsciously suffering from being alive.

It's not that I hate people. I'm just indifferent to them—or rather, they disgust me; and they'd better keep out of my way, or I'll run them down.

Another syllogism. All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat.

I don't believe in seeing evil in everything. I leave that to the inquisitors.

BERENGER: And you consider all this natural? 

DUDARD: What could be more natural than a rhinoceros? 

 BERENGER: Yes, but for a man to turn into a rhinoceros is abnormal beyond question. 

DUDARD: Well, of course, that's a matter of opinion ... 

 BERENGER: It is beyond question, absolutely beyond question! 
DUDARD: You seem very sure of yourself. Who can say where the normal stops and the abnormal begins? Can you personally define these conceptions of normality and abnormality? Nobody has solved this problem yet, either medically or philosophically. You ought to know that. 

 BERENGER: The problem may not be resolved philosophically -- but in practice it's simple. They may prove there's no such thing as movement ... and then you start walking ... [he starts walking up and down the room] ... and you go on walking, and you say to yourself, like Galileo, 'E pur si muove' ... 

 DUDARD: You're getting things all mixed up! Don't confuse the issue. In Galileo's case it was the opposite: theoretic and scientific thought proving itself superior to mass opinion and dogmatism. 

 BERENGER: [quite lost] What does all that mean? Mass opinion, dogmatism -- they're just words! I may be mixing everything up in my head but you're losing yours. You don't know what's normal and what isn't any more. I couldn't care less about Galileo ... I don't give a damn about Galileo. 

 DUDARD: You brought him up in the first place and raised the whole question, saying that practice always had the last word. Maybe it does, but only when it proceeds from theory! The history of thought and science proves that. BERENGER: [more and more furious] It doesn't prove anything of the sort! It's all gibberish, utter lunacy! 

DUDARD: There again we need to define exactly what we mean by lunacy ... 

 BERENGER: Lunacy is lunacy and that's all there is to it! Everybody knows what lunacy is. And what about the rhinoceroses -- are they practice or are they theory?

The fact that I despise religion doesn't mean I don't esteem it highly.

Ionesco’s aim was to help us see just how bizarre propaganda actually is, but how normal it seems to those who yield to it. By using the absurd image of the rhinoceros, Ionesco was trying to shock people into noticing the strangeness of what was actually happening.

I'll take on the whole lot of them! I'll put up a fight against the lot of them, the whole lot of them! I'm the last man left, and I'm staying that way until the end. I'm not capitulating!

Rhinoceros The Leader The Future is in Eggs or It Takes all Sorts to Make a World

Do rhinoceroses cough?

But you'll never become a rhinoceros, really you won't ... you haven't got the vocation!

Good men make good rhinoceroses, unfortunately. It's

[comes out of the bathroom] Brrr. [He trumpets again.] BERENGER: That's not what you believe fundamentally—I know you too well. You know as well as I do that mankind... JEAN: [interrupting him] Don't talk to me about mankind! BERENGER: I mean the human individual, humanism... JEAN: Humanism is all washed up! You're a ridiculous old sentimentalist. [He goes into the bathroom.] BERENGER: But you must admit that the mind... JEAN: [from the bathroom] Just clichés! You're talking rubbish! BERENGER: Rubbish! JEAN: [from the bathroom in a very hoarse voice, difficult to understand] Utter rubbish! BERENGER: I'm amazed to hear you say that, Jean,

Det er ikke sikkert at alkohol dreper alle sykdomsbasiller. Når det gjelder neshorneri, vet man ikke noe foreløbig.

Hvis dette bare hadde hendt et annet sted, i et annet land, og vi hadde lest om det i avisen! Da hadde vi kunnet snakke om det i fred og ro, studere spørsmålet fra alle sider, og trekke objektive slutninger. Vi kunne ha organisert diskusjonsmøter og fått vitenskapsmenn, forfattere, jurister, lærde damer og kunstnere til å komme. Ja, alminnelige mennesker også. Det ville vært interessant, spennende og lærerikt. Men når en står midt oppe i det, når en plutselig befinner seg ansikt til ansikt med den brutale virkeligheten, så kan en ikke la være å føle at det angår en.

Når det kommer til stykket, er jeg ikke sikker på om De har moralsk rett til å blande dem i saken. Dessuten tror jeg fremdeles ikke det er noen fare på ferde. Etter min mening er det absurd å gå fra konseptene fordi om noen mennesker har fått lyst til å skifte ham. Det får bli deres egen sak. Det står enhver fritt for.

Ve den som vil bevare sitt særpreg!