Jostein Gaarder Quotes - Page 2

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.

A true philosopher must never give up.

Thus the 'fortune-teller' is trying to foresee something that is really quite unforeseeable. This is characteristic of all forms of foreseeing. And precisely because what they 'see' is so vague, it is hard to repudiate fortune-tellers' claims.

As long as we are children, we have the ability to experience things around us--but then we grow used to the world. To grow up is to get drunk on sensory experience.

All a man can see while looking at the sky are cosmic fossils of thousands and millions of years ago. The only thing an astrologer can predict, is the past.

In the eyeball there is a clash between creation and reflection. The two-way globes of sight are magical revolving doors where the creative spirit meets itself in the created spirit. The eye that surveys the universe is the universe's own eye.

I can wait until my heart bleeds with sorrow.

People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.

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

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

Socrates himself said, 'One thing only I know, and this is that I know nothing.' Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers. Moreover, it can be so dangerous to say in public that it can cost you your life. The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

We are the universe.

Was Jesus a christian?

But sorrow can also be contagious. Fear is different. It isn't as communicable as laughter or sadness, and a good thing too. Fear is almost entirely a lonely thing.

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.