Jostein Gaarder Quotes - Page 4

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• That fact that Athens could condemn its noblest citizen to death did more than make a profound impression on him. It was to shape the course of his entire philosophic endeavor.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Profound, Citizens, Shapes

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.77, Hachette UK

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

  Jostein Gaarder

  Butterfly

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• If I’d chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Feet, Fairytale, Sometimes

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “The Orange Girl”, p.63, Hachette UK

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• I have gone around observing your activities from the outside. Because of this I have also been able to see things to which you have been blind... Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake. Of course, you have seen the sun and the moon, the stars in the sky, and everything that moves, but you haven't really seen it at all. It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw: He sees too clearly and too much.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Morning, Stars, Moving

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• Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal - and that no man can escape his destiny.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Believe, Destiny, Men

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.55, Hachette UK

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• The sophists were as a rule men who had traveled widely and seen different forms of government. Both conventions and local laws in the city-states could vary widely. This led the Sophists to raise the question of what was natural and what was socially induced. By doing this, they paved the way for social criticism in the city-state of Athens.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Men, Law, Cities

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• A Russian cosmonaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing Christianity. The brain surgeon was a Christian, but the cosmonaut wasn’t. ‘I have been in outer space many times,’ bragged the cosmonaut, ‘but I have never seen any angels.’ The brain surgeon stared in amazement, but then he said, ‘And I have operated on many intelligent brains, but I have never seen a single thought.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Christian, Angel, Intelligent

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• Although you may not stumble across a Martian in the garden, you might stumble across yourself. The day that happens, you'll probably also scream a little. And that'll be perfectly all right, because it's not every day you realize you're a living planet dweller on a little island in the universe.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Garden, Islands, May

  Jostein Gaarder (2003). “The Solitaire Mystery”, p.108, Macmillan

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• We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Boys, Opportunity, Garden

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• When we die, as when the scenes have been fixed on to celluloid and the scenery is pulled down and burnt — we are phantoms in the memories of our descendants. Then we are ghosts, my dear, then we are myths. But still we are together. We are the past together, we are a distant past. Beneath the dome of the mysterious stars, I still hear your voice.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Stars, Memories, Past

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Maya”, p.158, Hachette UK

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• Many of the Nazis were convicted after the war, but they were not convicted for being 'unreasonable'. They were convicted for being gruesome murderers.

  Jostein Gaarder

  War, Nazi, Murderer

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• Some are more equal than others.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Equal

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

  Jostein Gaarder

  Philosophical, Years, Billions

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• As a Roman philosopher, Cicero, said of him a few hundred years later, Socrates 'called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Philosophy, Home, Years

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• a sensation is always the same as a piece of news, and a piece of news never lives long.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Long, News, Pieces

  Jostein Gaarder (2003). “The Solitaire Mystery”, p.43, Macmillan

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• I wrote Sophies World in three months, but I was only writing and sleeping. I work for 14 hours a day when Im working on a book.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Book, Writing, Sleep

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• There exists a world. In terms of probability this borders on the impossible. It would have been far more likely if, by chance, there was nothing at all. Then, at least, no one would have began asking why there was nothing.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Asking Why, Borders, World

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• Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as helping people to 'give birth' to correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. . . . Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Mother, Art, Children

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• What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Horse, Plato, Pigs

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Sophie's World”, p.76, Hachette UK

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• Moreover, nature's blocks had to be eternal-because nothing can come from nothing.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Block, Eternal

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• Throughout the entire history of philosophy, philosophers have sought to discover what man is - or what human nature is. But Sartre believed that man has no such eternal nature to fall back on. It is therefore useless to search for the meaning of life in general. We are condemned to improvise. We are like actors dragged onto the stage without having learned our lines, with no script and no prompter to whisper stage directions to us. We must decide for ourselves how to live.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Philosophy, Fall, Men

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• Every single morning I wake with a bang,' he said. 'It's as though the fact that I am alive is injected into me; I am a character in a fairytale, bursting with life.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Morning, Character, Bangs

  Jostein Gaarder (2003). “The Solitaire Mystery”, p.162, Macmillan

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• The universe is a great mystery.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Mystery, Universe

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• Where did the world come from? The question has an answer, even though I cannot get to it. It is a good question. It is like a crime that has not been solved. There is an answer, even if police do not know it.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Police, Good Questions, Answers

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• I want to understand more about the world while Im still here.

  Jostein Gaarder

  World, Want, Stills

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