Jostein Gaarder quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Jostein Gaarder on Wise Famous Quotes.

It is not easy for example to surgically remove a delusion

Wasn't it odd that she didn't know who she was? And wasn't it unreasonable that she hadn't been allowed to have any say in what she would look like?

I'm not playing!' Sophie retorted indignantly, 'I'm doing a very important philosophical experiment!

The history of ideas is like a drama in many acts.

A true philosopher must never give up.

If a baker makes fifty absolutely identical cookies, he must be using the same pastry mold for all of them.

The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

Some are more equal than others.

It was a beautiful thought that all living things were imperfect copies of the eternal forms in the world of ideas.

If our brains were as simple as we could understand them, than we would be so stupid that we couldn't understand them again.

Nothing happens accidentally. everything happens through necessity, so it is of little use to complain when fate comes knocking at the door.

do not control everything that happens in our body - which

Nothing Can Come from Nothing

If something was natural, she supposed, it was the same for everybody.

The philosopher had rescued her. The unknown letter writer had saved her from the triviality of everyday existence.

The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body.

A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.

They made up all those myths in the time before there was anything called science.

It's not him who's disturbed. But he likes to disturb others
to shake them out of their rut.

The greatest thing of all is love. Time can't pale that as easily as it fades old memories.

I said his line of thought - referring to the philosopher, because this is also a story of men.

All stars fall at some time. But a star is only a tiny spark from the great beacon in the sky.

The memories float further and further away from that which once created them.

There is no order of things except in the human mind.

No day is alike - I do many other things, and I'm very active in the environmental movement.

We are thrown together with a sprinkling of stardust.

You might say that the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents.

I didn't feel lonely until there was something to yearn for. Loneliness and longing are two sides of the same coin.

Nothing is ever actually invented by the mind. The mind puts things together and constructs false ideas

The devil finds work for idle hands.

She had not even chosen to be a human being.

Wisest is she who knows she does not know.

At some point something must have come from nothing.

Ladies and Gentlemen ... we are floating in Space!

When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.

THE ONLY THING WE REQUIRE TO BE GOOD PHILOSOPHERS IS THE FACULTY OF WONDER. Babies

The expectation of one thing following another does not lie in the things themselves, but in our mind. And expectation is associated with habit.

There are five billion people living on this planet. But you fall in love with one particular person, and you won't swap her for any other.

Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.

When we sense something, it is due to the movement of atoms in space. When I see the moon it is because "moon atoms" penetrate my eye.

Not everybody can let himself drift along the flow of history. Some of us have to stop to pick up what's washed up on the banks of the river.

Wasn't it extraordinary to be in the world right now, wandering around in a wonderful adventure!

He was not only the last of the great Greek philosophers, he was Europe's first great biologist.

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

Hegel said that 'truth' is subjective, thus rejecting the existence of any 'truth' above or beyond human reason. All knowledge is human knowledge.

Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales

The word 'influenza' actually means a malign influence from the stars.

Without imagination, nothing really new will ever be created.

The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about.

The rearing of children is considered too important to be left to the individual and should be the responsibility of the state.

Everything you know gained from experience

But she who wins the lot of life must also draw the lot of death, since the lot of life is death

One mustn't be so cocksure, Joker says. Bad habit, he repeats.

I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature

Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.

If we don't know where we are going, it can be helpful to know where we come from.

When two people meet," he said, "and one is upside down, it isn't always easy to tell which of them is the right way up.

Thor - the Batman or James Bond of the gods - has once again conquered the forces of evil.

The severance between us was surgical, and there was no anaesthetic..

Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings.

She felt that it was only her body that was getting old. Inside she had always been the same young girl.

I am in the world now, she thought, but one day I shall be gone.

When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.

Why was it so difficult to be absorbed in the most vital and, in a way, the most natural of all questions?

Going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way

The story goes that one day Socrates stood gazing at a stall that sold all
kinds of wares. Finally he said, What a lot of things I don't need!

I'm not just some butterfly for you to catch.

On the Contrary, to Aristotle the 'forms' were in the things because they were the particular characteristics of these things

Life consists of a long chain of coincidences.

It takes billions of years to create a human being. And it takes only a few seconds to die.

It's strange how little time it takes to read.

But it's important to be happy about the little you have. However little it is, it's infinitely more than nothing.

If the human brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it.

We can't own each other's past. The question is whether we have a future together.

Nowadays we would perhaps call Plato's state totalitarian.

But understanding will always require some effort. You probably wouldn't admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.

Yes, we too are stardust.

The question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a persons needs.

It's not a silly question if you can't answer it.

Love, your own witch-daughter, Queen of the Mirror and the Highest Protector of Irony

I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.

Long before the child learns to talk properly ... the world will have become a habit. A pity, if you ask me.

The very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents. The more extreme they become, the more powerful the reaction they will have to face.

Indeed, there is pain when spring buds burst..."
Wasn't there a Swedish poet who had said something like that? Or was she Finnish?

It is extraordinary to think about. We still speak of Socratic or Platonic philosophy, but actually being Plato or Socrates is quite another matter.

For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good; it is civilization which ruins him

If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.

The world becomes a dream, and the dream becomes reality.

Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.

I am here only this once. And I shall never return.

Plato found mathematics very absorbing because mathematical states never change.

Do you mind telling me what's suddenly so important?'
Sophie just shook her head. 'It's ... it's a secret.'
'Yuck! You're probably in love.

But Dad said we had to try, because neither he or I could bear the thought of living the rest of our lives without her.

As soon as she concentrated on being alive now, the thought of dying also came into her mind.

If our brain was simple enough for us to understand it, we would be so stupid we wouldn't be able to understand it after all.

But the dream of something unlikely has its own special name. We call it hope.

Maybe we can comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never comprehend ourselves. Even less can we expect to comprehend the universe.

Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible.

But if the history of mankind was her own history, in a way she was thousands of years old.

A philosopher never gets quite used to the world.