Dr. Thomas Stockmann realises that the community Baths project he has been empowered to oversee is now diseased and contaminated. It would spell disaster for both visitors and the community people. He tries to bring this to the notice of the authorities involved and the general masses.
At first, he is gaining the acceptance of the people. But as he finds himself in conflict with the authorities, chief among which is Peter Stockmann (his brother and mayor), he loses this momentum and his position at the Baths. He is tagged “an enemy of the people”. His immediate family are ostracized in the community. He realises the absurdity of placing the fate of a people in the hands of an ignorant, easily manipulated, mutable majority. This is the storyline of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People”.
Quotes from “An Enemy of the People”
A community is like a ship;
— Billing
everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
(Act I, An Enemy of the People)
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
(Act I, An Enemy of the People)
The public is best served by the good, old established ideas it already has.
— Peter Stockmann
(Act II, An Enemy of the People)
What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?
— Mrs Stockmann
(Act II, An Enemy of the People)
. . . we are on the threshold of a revolution!
— Billing
(Act III, An Enemy of the People)
Endless vistas have opened themselves to my mind’s eye today. I cannot see it all quite clearly yet, but I shall in time.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act III, An Enemy of the People)
I am going to see whether a pack of cowards can succeed in gagging a patriot who wants to purify society!
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act III, An Enemy of the People)
. . . 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.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
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.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
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!
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
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.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
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 . . . . The majority has might on its side–unfortunately; but right it has not. . . .The minority is always in the right.
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
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.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
. . . no community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such old marrowless truths.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
I am not so forgiving as a certain Person; I do not say: “I forgive you, for ye know not what ye do.”
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann
(Act IV, An Enemy of the People)
You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann(Act V, An Enemy of the People)
To be called an ugly name may have the same effect as a pin-scratch in the lung.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann(Act V, An Enemy of the People)
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!
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann(Act V, An Enemy of the People)
Public opinion is an extremely mutable thing.
— Peter Stockmann
(Act V, An Enemy of the People)
. . . the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
— Dr. Thomas Stockmann(Act V, An Enemy of the People)
