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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.

-Henrik Ibsen

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It's Not Only What

Henrik Ibsen

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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.

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Expanding Universe

Money Brings You Food, But Not Appetite; Medicine, But Not Health; Acquaintances, But Not Friends.

I Must Make Up My Mind Which Is Right – Society Or I.

The Spectacles Of Experience; Through Them You Will See More Clearly A Second Time.

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 Sand Of The Sea.... We Are, One And All, So Pitifully Afraid Of The Light.

The Spirit Of Truth And The Spirit Of Freedom-they Are The Pillars Of Society.

Your Home Is Regarded As A Model Home, Your Life As A Model Life. But All This Splendor, And You Along With It... It's Just As Though It Were Built Upon A Shifting Quagmire. A Moment May Come, A Word Can Be Spoken, And Both You And All This Splendor Will Collapse.

The Sea Possesses A Power Over One's Moods That Has The Effect Of A Will. The Sea Can Hypnotize. Nature In General Can Do So.

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.

A Thousand Words Can't Make The Mark A Single Deed Will Leave.

I Am Sticking As Closely To My Subject As I Can; For My Subject Is Precisely This, That It Is The Masses, The Majority

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Now I Am Steel-set: I Follow The Call To The Clear Radiance And Glow Of The Heights.

Bigger Things Than The State Will Fall, All Religion Will Fall.

Was The Majority Right When They Stood By While Jesus Was Crucified? Was The Majority Right When They Refused To Believe That The Earth Moved Around The Sun And Let Galileo Be Driven To His Knees Like A Dog? It Takes Fifty Years For The Majority To Be Right. The Majority Is Never Right Until It Does Right.

Everything I Touch Seems Destined To Turn Into Something Mean And Farcical.

The Strongest Men Are The Most Alone.

A Friend Married Is A Friend Lost.

I Am In Revolt Against The Age-old Lie That The Majority Is Always Right.

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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.

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.

It Was Then That I Began To Look Into The Seams Of Your Doctrine. I Wanted Only To Pick At A Single Knot; But When I Had Got That Undone, The Whole Thing Raveled Out. And Then I Understood That It Was All Machine-sewn.

The Great Task Of Our Time Is To Blow Up All Existing Institutions To Destroy.

Each Bird Must Sing With His Own Throat.

A Party Is Like A Sausage Machine, It Grinds Up All Sorts Of Heads Together Into The Same Baloney.

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Oh Yes, Right—right. What Is The Use Of Having Right On Your Side If You Have Not Got Might?

Castles In The Air - They Are So Easy To Take Refuge In. And So Easy To Build Too.

Friends Are To Be Feared, Not So Much For What They Make Us Do As What They Keep Us From Doing.

The Majority Is Always Wrong; The Minority Is Rarely Right.

I'm Plotting Revolution Against This Lie That The Majority Has A Monopoly Of The Truth. What Are These Truths That Always Bring The Majority Rallying Round? Truths So Elderly They Are Practically Senile. And When A Truth Is As Old As That, Gentlemen, You Can Hardly Tell It From A Lie.

But 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.

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I Believe That, Before All Else, I'm A Human Being, No Less Than You.

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What Ought A Man Be? Well, My Short Answer Is 'himself'.

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In Great Memories There Lies The Seed Of Growth.

Whether I Pound Or Am Being Pounded, All The Same There Will Be Moaning!

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Really To Sin You Have To Be Serious About It.

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Happiness Is Worth A Daring Deed; We Are Both Free If We But Will It, And Then The Game Is Won.

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To Die In Agony Upon A Cross Does Not Create A Martyr; He Must First Will His Own Execution.

That Is The Accursed Thing About Small Surroundings -- They Make The Soul Small.

What's A Man's First Duty? The Answer Is Brief: To Be Himself.

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Public Opinion Is An Extremely Mutable Thing

Our Whole Being Is Nothing But A Fight Against The Dark Forces Within Ourselves.

To Live Is To War With Trolls In Heart And Woul. To Write Is To Sit In Judgement On Oneself.

Almost Everyone Who Has Gone To The Bad Early In Life Has Had A Deceitful Mother.

Oh, One Soon Makes Friends With Invalids; And I Need So Much To Have Someone To Live For.

Nora: I Must Stand On My Own Two Feet If I'm To Get To Know Myself And The World Outside. That's Why I Can't Stay Here With You Any Longer.

If You Doubt Yourself, Then Indeed You Stand On Shaky Ground.

Many A Man Can Save Himself If He Admits He's Done Wrong And Takes His Punishment.

If Only I Could Master That Demon Of Procrastination That Goes About Like A Roaring Lion And Devours All My Good Intentions, I Should Become The Most Punctual Man In The World.

Procrastination

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!

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