Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

... the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

As long as we are children, we have the ability to experience things around us--but then we grow used to the world.…

— Jostein Gaarder

“As you can imagine, the wandering Sophists created bitter wrangling in Athens by pointing out that there were no absolute norms for…

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— 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

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

— Jostein Gaarder

“All a man can see while looking at the sky are cosmic fossils of thousands and millions of years ago. The only…

— Jostein Gaarder

“In the garden everything was wonderfully clear and still. The birds were chirping so energetically that Sophie could hardly keep from laughing.…

— Jostein Gaarder

“She sent me a sunny smile, and what a smile, George; it was a smile that could have melted the whole world,…

— Jostein Gaarder

Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical…

— Jostein Gaarder

“Plato's point is that we can never have true knowledge of anything that is in a constant state of change. We can…

— 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…

— 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…

— Jostein Gaarder

It is different for us mortals. We are the ones who become old and grey. We are the ones who become worn…

— 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…

— Jostein Gaarder

“So we go around pigeonholing everything. We put cows in cowsheds, horses in stables, pigs in pigsties, and chickens in chicken coops.…

— Jostein Gaarder

“Pokazao sam na Veneru i rekao da je ta zvezda u stvari planeta koja kruži oko Sunca, baš kao Zemlja. Veneru smo…

— Jostein Gaarder

“The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I…

— Jostein Gaarder

When we talked about Socrates, we saw how dangerous it could be to appeal to people's reason. With Jesus we see how…

— Jostein Gaarder

“She was a stranger. She came from a more beautiful fairytale than ours. But she’d managed to find her way into our…

— Jostein Gaarder

“as Hume expressed it. The mind is 'a kind of theater, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, slide away,…

— Jostein Gaarder

We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we…

— Jostein Gaarder

Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not…

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

“any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.”

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

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

— Jostein Gaarder

To prove religious faith by human reason is rationalistic claptrap.

— Jostein Gaarder