Henrik Ibsen Quotes

A minority may be right. The majority is always wrong.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Unless you are unique, your opinion goes out the window.

To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the “scientific” establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail.

How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?

One must not mistake majority for truth.

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

Unanimity of opinion is characteristic of savages and civilization only advances as more and more people have the right to call wrong what the majority calls right..

Better be wrong with the many than right with the few.

So long as a minority conforms to the majority, it is not even a minority.

It is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

When your opinions start to coincide with those of the majority, it is time to reconsider your opinions.

I'm against fashionable thinking.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

I am something of a contrarian, I suppose. I feel less comfortable when everybody agrees with me. I say, 'I better reexamine my position!' I probably believe that the worst opinions in my court have been unanimous. Because there's nobody on the other side pointing out all the flaws.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

If everybody is happy, then something is wrong with the democratic process.

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

As far as innovation goes, I can tell you that Korean students are reluctant to step out of line. If I ask questions, nobody raises their hands - not because they don't know the answers, but because they don't want to step out of line.

A vocal minority beats a silent majority.

No member of any society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.

The difference between being out of step with a dictator and being out of step with the democratic majority is practically negligible. The important thing is to be in step.