An Enemy of the People quotes

Dr. Stockmann. Oh, you mustn't take me too literally, Peter. I am so heartily happy and contented, you know. I think it is such an extraordinary piece of good fortune to be in the middle of all this growing, germinating life.

It is a splendid time to live in!

It is as if a whole new world were being created around one.

I am so heartily happy and contented, you know. I think it is such an extraordinary piece of good fortune to be in the middle of all this growing, germinating life. It is a splendid time to live in!

It is as if a whole new world were being created around one.

Peter Stockmann. Do you really think so?

Dr. Stockmann. I know, I know; it is all cramped enough here, compared with many other places.

But there is life here—there is promise—there are innumerable things to work for and fight for; and that is the main thing.

(Calls.) Katherine, hasn't the postman been here?

Billing. Doesn't know! What do you mean by that?

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

Horster. Maybe that is all very well on shore; but on board ship it wouldn't work.

Dr. Stockmann.

Sailors are like birds of passage; they feel equally at home in any latitude.

And that is only an additional reason for our being all the more keen, Hovstad. Is there to be anything of public interest in tomorrow's "Messenger"?

Petra. 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.

Petra. Yes, don't you suppose we have to teach them all sorts of things that we don't believe?

Petra.

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.

Dr. Stockmann. Yes, yes—only give me time, and you shall know all about it. If only I had Peter here now!

It just shows how we men can go about forming our judgments, when in reality we are as blind as any moles—

Hovstad. What are you driving at, Doctor?

Dr. Stockmann.

The whole place is a pest-house!

Mrs. Stockmann (at the same time), Our Baths?

Dr. Stockmann.

The whole Bath establishment is a whited, poisoned sepulchre, I tell you—the gravest possible danger to the public health!

All the nastiness up at Molledal, all that stinking filth, is infecting the water in the conduit-pipes leading to the reservoir; and the same cursed, filthy poison oozes out on the shore too—

Hovstad.

The morass that the whole life of our town is built on and is rotting in.

Dr. Stockmann. What the deuce are you driving at, Hovstad?

Hovstad. That shall be recognised ungrudgingly, But a journalist of my democratic tendencies cannot let such an opportunity as this slip.

The bubble of official infallibility must be pricked.

This superstition must be destroyed, like any other.

Aslaksen. We shall proceed with the greatest moderation, Doctor.

Moderation is always my aim; it is the greatest virtue in a citizen—at least, I think so.

Dr. Stockmann. It is well known to be a characteristic of yours, Mr. Aslaksen.

Hovstad.

There is one thing I esteem higher than that; and that is for a man to be self-reliant and sure of himself.

Dr. Stockmann. I think you are perfectly right there.

Hovstad. That is why I want to seize this opportunity, and try if I cannot manage to put a little virility into these well-intentioned people for once.

The idol of Authority must be shattered in this town.

This gross and inexcusable blunder about the water supply must be brought home to the mind of every municipal voter.

Peter Stockmann. Oh, the public doesn't require any new ideas.

The public is best served by the good, old established ideas it already has.

Dr. Stockmann. And that is your honest opinion?

Dr. Stockmann. The source is poisoned, man! Are you mad? We are making our living by retailing filth and corruption!

The whole of our flourishing municipal life derives its sustenance from a lie!

Peter Stockmann. All imagination—or something even worse. The man who can throw out such offensive insinuations about his native town must be an enemy to our community.

Mrs. Stockmann. Oh yes, right—right.

What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?

Petra. Oh, mother!—how can you say such a thing!

Dr. Stockmann (at his door).

I mean to have the right to look my sons in the face when they are grown men.

(Goes into his room.)

Dr. Stockmann. Who the devil cares whether there is any risk or not!

What I am doing, I am doing in the name of truth and for the sake of my conscience.

Hovstad. You are a man who deserves to be supported, Doctor.

Aslaksen.

When a man has interests of his own to protect, he cannot think of everything, Mr. Hovstad.

Hovstad. Then I hope I shall never have interests of my own to protect!

Aslaksen.

A politician should never be too certain of anything, Mr. Hovstad.

And as for you, Mr. Billing, I should think it is time for you to be taking in a reef or two in your sails, seeing that you are applying for the post of secretary to the Bench.

Petra. And are you going to be the one to give it to them? For myself, I do not believe a word of it.

You know quite well that things do not happen so in reality.

Hovstad. You are perfectly right; but an editor cannot always act as he would prefer. He is often obliged to bow to the wishes of the public in unimportant matters. Politics are the most important thing in life—for a newspaper, anyway;

Hovstad. You are perfectly right; but an editor cannot always act as he would prefer. He is often obliged to bow to the wishes of the public in unimportant matters.

Politics are the most important thing in life—for a newspaper, anyway;

and if I want to carry my public with me on the path that leads to liberty and progress, I must not frighten them away.

Petra. Of course you do, don't you?

It is a splendid vocation you have chosen—to smooth the way for the march of unappreciated truths, and new and courageous lines of thought.

If it were nothing more than because you stand fearlessly in the open and take up the cause of an injured man—

Dr. Stockmann (angrily). I will tell you why.

It is because all the men in this town are old women—like you; they all think of nothing but their families, and never of the community.

Mrs. Stockmann (putting her arm into his). Then I will show them that an old woman can be a man for once. I am going to stand by you, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann. —but I got them clear in my mind at last, and then I saw the whole situation lucidly. And that is why I am standing here to-night. I have a great revelation to make to you, my fellow-citizens!

I will impart to you a discovery of a far wider scope than the trifling matter that our water supply is poisoned and our medicinal Baths are standing on pestiferous soil.

A number of voices (shouting). Don't talk about the Baths! We won't hear you! None of that!

Aslaksen. What I mean is only that I got scent of the unbelievable piggishness our leading men had been responsible for down at the Baths. I can't stand leading men at any price!—I have had enough of such people in my time.

They are like billy-goats on a young plantation; they do mischief everywhere.

They stand in a free man's way, whichever way he turns, and what I should like best would be to see them exterminated like any other vermin—. (Uproar.)

Dr. Stockmann. You may depend upon it—I shall name them! That is precisely the great discovery I made yesterday. (Raises his voice.)

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! (Tremendous uproar. Most of the crowd are shouting, stamping and hissing. Some of the older men among them exchange stolen glances and seem to be enjoying themselves. MRS. STOCKMANN gets up, looking anxious.

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?

But, good Lord!—you can never pretend that it is right that the stupid folk should govern the clever ones! (Uproar and cries.) 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.

I am in the right—I and a few other scattered individuals. The minority is always in the right. (Renewed uproar.)

(Uproar and cries.) 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. I am in the right—I and a few other scattered individuals.

The minority is always in the right.

(Renewed uproar.)

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? 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.

(Laughter and mocking cries.) Yes, believe me or not, as you like; but truths are by no means as long-lived at Methuselah—as some folk imagine. A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years—seldom longer.

Dr. Stockmann. Good heavens—of course I am, Mr. Hovstad!

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? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up.

There is no great nutritive value in that sort of fare, I can assure you; and, as a doctor, I ought to know.

These "majority truths" are like last year's cured meat—like rancid, tainted ham; and they are the origin of the moral scurvy that is rampant in our communities.

Aslaksen. It appears to me that the speaker is wandering a long way from his subject.

Happily the theory that culture demoralises is only an old falsehood that our forefathers believed in and we have inherited.

No, it is ignorance, poverty, ugly conditions of life, that do the devil's work!

In a house which does not get aired and swept every day—my wife Katherine maintains that the floor ought to be scrubbed as well, but that is a debatable question—in such a house, let me tell you, people will lose within two or three years …

… every day—my wife Katherine maintains that the floor ought to be scrubbed as well, but that is a debatable question—in such a house, let me tell you, people will lose within two or three years the power of thinking or acting in a moral manner.

Lack of oxygen weakens the conscience.

And there must be a plentiful lack of oxygen in very many houses in this town, I should think, judging from the fact that the whole compact majority can be unconscientious enough to wish to build the town's prosperity on a quagmire of falsehood and …

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, my native town is so dear to me that I would rather ruin it than see it flourishing upon a lie.

Aslaksen. This is really serious. (Uproar and cat-calls MRS. STOCKMANN coughs, but to no purpose; her husband does not listen to her any longer.)

Dr. Stockmann.

No back ways for me, Katherine,

(Raising his voice.) You will hear more of this enemy of the people, before he shakes the dust off his shoes upon you! I am not so forgiving as a certain Person; I do not say:

Dr. Stockmann.

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

It is not that I care so much about the trousers, you know; you can always sew them up again for me.

Dr. Stockmann. Don't swear to that, Katherine.

To be called an ugly name may have the same effect as a pin-scratch in the lung.

And that hateful name—I can't get quit of it. It is sticking here in the pit of my stomach, eating into me like a corrosive acid. And no magnesia will remove it.

Dr. Stockmann. 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!

Mrs. Stockmann. Come, come, Thomas dear!

Peter Stockmann.

Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing.

And, to be quite candid with you, it is a matter of great importance to us to have some admission of that sort from you in writing.

Dr. Stockmann. Of course you don't, but I will tell you.

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.

Peter Stockmann. This sort of thing sounds extremely plausible, of course; and if there were no other explanation for your obstinacy—. But as it happens that there is.

Aslaksen.

The Press is a power in a free community.

Doctor.

Dr. Stockmann. Well, look here—I will explain! It is the party leaders that must be exterminated.

A party leader is like a wolf, you see—like a voracious wolf.

He requires a certain number of smaller victims to prey upon every year, if he is to live. Just look at Hovstad and Aslaksen!

Mrs. Stockmann.

Yes, if only we could live on sunshine and spring air, Thomas.

Dr. Stockmann. Oh, you will have to pinch and save a bit—then we shall get along. That gives me very little concern.

Dr. Stockmann. Yes. (Gathers them round him, and says confidentially:)

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

Mrs. Stockmann (smiling and shaking her head). Oh, Thomas, Thomas!