Jostein Gaarder Quotes

Perhaps we're sad when something's beautiful because we know it won't last forever. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Is it true that sometimes you're so suspicious, you turn quite black inside? ~ Jostein Gaarder

Our lives are part of a unique adventure ... Nevertheless, most of us think the world is 'normal' and are constantly hunting for something abnormal
like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don't realize the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fit together. ~ Jostein Gaarder

One of the main concerns of philosophy is to warn people against jumping to conclusions. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Dear Hilde,
I assume you're still celebrating your 15th birthday. Or is it the morning after? Anyways, it makes no difference to your present. In a sense, that will last a life time. But I'd like to wish you happy birthday one more time. Perhaps you understand now why I send the cards to Sophie. I am sure she will pass them on to you.
P.S. Mom said you lost your wallet. I hereby promise to reimburse you the 150 crowns. You will probably be able to get another school I.D. before they close for the summer vacation.
Love from Dad. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

If there is a god, he is not only a wizard at leaving clues behind. More than anything, he's a master of concealment. And the world is not something that gives itself away. The heavens still keep their secrets. There is little gossip amongst the stars. But no one has forgotten the Big Bang yet. Since then, silence has reigned supreme, and every thing there is moving away. One can still come across a moon. Or a comet. Just don't expect friendly greetings. No visiting cards are printed in space. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

rationalist believes in reason as the primary source of knowledge, and he may also believe that man has certain innate ideas that exist in the mind prior to all experience. And the clearer such ideas may be, the more certain it is that they correspond to reality. You ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

The more self-evident a thing is to one's reason, the more certain it is that it exists ~ Jostein Gaarder

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. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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. ~ Jostein Gaarder

I've nothing against eye make-up and lipstick. But the fact is that we're actually living on a planet in space. For me that's an extraordinary thought. It's mind-boggling just to think about the existence of space at all. But there are girls who can't see the universe for eye liner. ~ Jostein Gaarder

do not control everything that happens in our body - which ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

The theater of the absurd represented a contrast to realistic theater. Its aim was to show the lack of meaning in life in order to get the audience to disagree. The idea was not to cultivate the meaningless. On the contrary. But by showing and exposing the absurd in ordinary everyday situations, the onlookers are forced to seek a truer and more essential life for themselves. ~ Jostein Gaarder

A composition - and every work of art is one - is created in a wondrous interplay between imagination and reason, or between mind and reflection. For there will always be an element of chance in the creative process. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I don't want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum. ~ Jostein Gaarder

To wonder about life is not something we learn; it is something we forget. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care ~ Jostein Gaarder

The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I'm not trying to hide it, but it's something you're not to worry about. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

I don't belong anywhere.
I am neither a heart, a diamond, a club, nor a spade. I am neither a King, a Jack, an Eight, nor an Ace.
As I am here - I am merely the Joker, and who that is I have had to find out for myself.
Every time I toss my head, the jingling bells remind me that I have no family.
I have no number - and no trade either.
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.
It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw:
he sees too deeply and too much.
Truth is a lonely thing. ~ Jostein Gaarder

According to Kierkegaard, rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual's life. It is important to find `the truth for me`. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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

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

The important thing is not what you may think is precisely right or wrong. What matters is that you choose to have an opinion at all on what is right or wrong. ~ Jostein Gaarder

But that's not all, Sophie. IT'S NOT ALL! ~ Jostein Gaarder

It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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

Nowadays we would perhaps call Plato's state totalitarian. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

But it is possible that a completely different author is somewhere writing a book about a UN Major Albert Knag, who is writing a book for his daughter Hilde. This book is about a certain Alberto Knox who suddenly begins to send humble philosophical lectures to Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover Close. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Everything you know gained from experience ~ Jostein Gaarder

We are partly instrumental in deciding what we perceive by selecting what is significant for us.
Two people can be present in the same room and yet experience it quite differently. This is because we contribute our own meaning or our own interests when we perceive our surroundings. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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

The Cynics emphasized that true happiness is not found in external advantages such as material luxury, political power, or good health. True happiness lies in not being dependent on such random and fleeting things. And because happiness does not consist in benefits of this kind, it is within everyone's reach. moreover, having once been attained, it can never be lost. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

What you did was to draw a conclusion from a descriptive sentence
That person
wants to live too'
to what we call a normative sentence: 'Therefore you ought not to kill them.' From the point of view of reason this is nonsense. You might just as well say 'There are lots of people who cheat on their taxes, therefore I ought to cheat on my taxes too.' Hume said you can never draw conclusions from is sentences to ought sentences. Nevertheless it is exceedingly common, not least in newspaper articles, political party programs, and speeches. ~ Jostein Gaarder

All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish. ~ Jostein Gaarder

How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a 'sound mind in a sound body'. ~ Jostein Gaarder

And although I have seen nothing but black crows in my life, it doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a white crow. Both for a philosopher and for a scientist it can be important not to reject the possibility of finding a white crow. You might almost say that hunting for 'the white crow' is science's principal task. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Life consists of a long chain of coincidences. ~ Jostein Gaarder

In the year 399 B.C.[E.] he was accused of "introducing new gods and corrupting the youth," as well as not believing in the accepted gods. With a slender majority, a jury of five hundred found him guilty. ~ Jostein Gaarder

To be more precise: although philosophical questions concern us all, we do not all become philosophers. ~ Jostein Gaarder

I no longer feel the need to see and sense more than I've already experienced. I just want so desperately to hang on what I have. ~ Jostein Gaarder

It is different for us mortals. We are the ones who become old and grey. We are the ones who become worn at the seams and disappear. But not our dreams. They can live on in other people even after we have gone. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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

It is Plato's portrait of Socrates that has inspired thinkers in the Western world for nearly 2.500 years. ~ Jostein Gaarder

The Enlightenment philosophers thought that once reason and knowledge became widespread, humanity would make great progress. It could only be a question of time before irrationalism and ignorance would give way to an "enlightened" humanity... Today we no longer so convinced that all "developments" are to the good. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Sophie could remember situations when her mother or the teachers at school had tried to teach her something that she hadn't been receptive to. And whenever she had really learned something, it was when she had somehow contributed to it herself. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Plato found mathematics very absorbing because mathematical states never change. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Don't you think it's a small mystery that birds can twitter so loudly that they can hear each other's song from several miles away? Those tiny bundles are like living flutes, playing non-stop on themselves. ~ Jostein Gaarder

But most people are content with a life among shadows. They give no thought to what is casting the shadows. They think shadows are all there are, never realizing even that they are, in fact, shadows. And thus they pay no heed to the immortality of their own soul. ~ Jostein Gaarder

We don't learn anything there [school]. The difference between schoolteachers and philosophers us that school-teachers think they know a lot of stuff that they try to force down our throats. Philosophers try to figure things out together with the pupils ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

(As human beings) We see everything everything in a glass, darkly. Sometimes we can peer through the glass and catch a glimpse of what is on the other side. If we were to polish the glass clean, we'd see much more. But then we would no longer see ourselves. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Nevertheless we are free individuals, and this freedom condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do. Sartre emphasized that man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we "must" go to work, or we "must" live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live "authentically" or "truly". ~ Jostein Gaarder

Democritus believed that the soul was made up of special round, smooth 'soul atoms.' When a human being died, the soul atoms flew in all directions, and could then become part of a new soul formation. ~ Jostein Gaarder

If you believed in Christianity or Islam it was called 'faith', but if you believed in astrology or friday the thirteenth it was Superstition! ~ Jostein Gaarder

The aim of the early Greek philosophers was to find natural, rather than supernatural, explanations for natural processes. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

At School she had trouble concentrating on what the teacher said. They seemed to talk only about unimportant things. Why couldn't they talk about what a human being is - or about what the world is and how it came into being? ~ Jostein Gaarder

I am here only this once. And I shall never return. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Hello again! As you see, this short course in philosophy will come in handy-sized portions. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Plotinus believed that the world is span between two polls. At one end is the divine light which he calls the One. Sometimes he calls it God. At the other end is absolute darkness, which receives none of the light from the One. But Plotinus' point is that this darkness actually has no existence. It simply is the absence of light - in other words, it 'is' not. All that exists is God, or the One, but in the same way that a beam of light grows progressively dimmer and is gradually extinguished, there is somewhere that the divine glow cannot reach. ~ Jostein Gaarder

There might be lots of different ways of getting to the top of the mountain, but the mountain itself would stay exactly the same. And we must have been fairly alike to begin with, because each of us is a kind of mountain climber. There, at the top of that mountain, we might make a big pile of stones together. Then we might sit down and rest after the long climb. For once we might forget all our worries, large and small. We would have left them behind in the valleys. ~ Jostein Gaarder

This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. to him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. You might say that throughout his life a philosopher remains as thin-skinned as a child. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Nowadays, people of many lands and cultures are being intermingled more and more. Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists may live in the same apartment building. In which case it is more important to accept each other's beliefs than to ask why everyone does not believe the same thing ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

I do not intend to give you any homework - no difficult math questions, or anything like that, and conjugating English verbs is outside my sphere of interest. However, from time to time I'll give you a short assignment. ~ Jostein Gaarder

Hume emphasized that the expectation of one thing following another does not lie in the things themselves, but in our mind. And expectation, as we have seen, is associated with habit. Going back to the child again, it would not have stared in amazement if when one billiard ball struck the other, both had remained perfectly motionless. When we speak of the 'laws of nature' or of 'cause and effect,' we are actually speaking of what we expect, rather than what is 'reasonable.' The laws of nature are neither reasonable nor unreasonable, they simply are. The expectation that the white billiard ball will move when it is struck by the black billiard ball is therefore not innate. We are not born with a set of expectations as to what the world is like or how things in the world behave. The world is like it is, and it's something we get to know ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Although I've always been easily led by my imagination, I was, and I remain, a rational person. ~ Jostein Gaarder

The harder you try to forget something, the more you think about it unconsciously. ~ Jostein Gaarder

A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, 'I've been out in space many times but I've never seen God or angels.' And the brain surgeon said, 'And I've operated on many clever brains but I've never seen a single thought. ~ Jostein Gaarder

There are many writing courses, there's plenty of demand for them. The shortage is having something to write about, and that can't be taught in schools. There is no course in finding something to write about.
Many beginners lacked something as fundamental as experience of life. It's a postmodern misconception that you can write first and live later. But many young people want to become writers because they want to live like writers. This is putting the cart before the horse. You must live first, and then decide if you have something to say afterwards. Life itself is a determining factor. Writing is the fruit of life. Life isn't the fruit of writing. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

Sophie knew that 'modesty' was an old-fashioned word for shyness - for example, about being seen naked. But was it really natural to be embarrassed about that? If something was natural, she supposed, it was the same for everybody. In many parts of the world it was completely natural to be naked. So it must be society that decides what you can and can't do. When Grandma was young you certainly couldn't sunbathe topless. But today, most people think it is 'natural,' even though it is still strictly forbidden in lots of countries. Was this philosophy? Sophie wondered. ~ Jostein Gaarder

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

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

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

In the garden everything was wonderfully clear and still. The birds were chirping so energetically that Sophie could hardly keep from laughing. The morning dew twinkled in the grass like drops of crystal. Once again she was struck by the incredible wonder of the world. ~ Jostein Gaarder