Jostein Gaarder
No day is alike - I do many other things, and I'm very active in the environmental movement.Collection: Environmental
I wrote 'Sophie's World' in three months, but I was only writing and sleeping. I work for 14 hours a day when I'm working on a book.
To wonder about life is not something we learn; it is something we forget.
I think about my editor when I write. She's a good friend, too.
I want to understand more about the world while I'm still here.
I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.
The universe is a great mystery.
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.
How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.Collection: People
Life is both sad and solemn. We are led into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other---and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.Collection: Together
An answer is always on the stretch of road that is behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.Collection: Way Forward
A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.Collection: Women
A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant's trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur.Collection: Cells
You can never know if a person forgives you when you wrong them. Therefore it is existentially important to you. It is a question you are intensely concerned with. Neither can you know whether a person loves you. It’s something you just have to believe or hope. But these things are more important to you than the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You don't think about the law of cause and effect or about modes of perception when you are in the middle of your first kiss.Collection: Believe
Yes, we too are stardust.Collection: Stardust
Life consists of a long chain of coincidences.Collection: Long
The most subversive people are those who ask questions.Collection: People
Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?Collection: Friday
I sat thinking how terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as incredible as living. One day we suddenly take the fact that we exist for granted - and then, yes, then we don’t think about it anymore until we are about to leave the world again.Collection: Thinking
When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.Collection: Sky
Life is short for those who are truly able to understand that one day the entire world will come to a complete end. Not everyone is capable of that. Not everyone has the ability to comprehend what going away for all eternity really implies. There are too many distractions, hour by hour, minute by minute, to hinder such an understanding.Collection: Life Is Short
The question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a persons needs.Collection: Needs
Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.Collection: Feelings
Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.Collection: Fall
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'.Collection: Mind
When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.Collection: Philosophy
Wasn’t it extraordinary to be in the world right now, wandering around in a wonderful adventure!Collection: Adventure
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.Collection: Falling In Love
People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.Collection: People
To prove religious faith by human reason is rationalistic claptrap.Collection: Religious
Wisest is she who knows she does not know.Collection: Philosophy
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.Collection: People
I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig--or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery.Collection: Believe
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`.Collection: Meaningful
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.Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Fear
Philosophy is the opposite of fairy talesCollection: Philosophy
going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong wayCollection: Way
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.Collection: Plato
But all fairytales have rules, and perhaps it’s their rules that actually distinguish one fairytale from the other. These rules never need to be understood. They only need to be followed. If not, what they promise won’t come true.Collection: Promise
It was all too easy to make things up, it was like skating on thin ice, it was like doing dainty pirouettes on a brittle crust over water thousands of fathoms deep.Collection: Skating On Thin Ice
But she’d managed to find her way into our reality, perhaps because she had an important mission here, perhaps because she was here to save us from what people call the monotony of life.Collection: Reality
History is one long chain of reflections. Hegel also indicated certain rules that apply for this chain of reflections. Anyone studying history in depth will observe that a thought is usually proposed on the basis of other, previously proposed thoughts. But as soon as one thought is proposed, it will be contradicted by another. A tension arises between these two opposite ways of thinking. But the tension is resolved by the proposal of a third thought which accommodates the best of both points of view. Hegel calls this a dialectic processCollection: Reflection
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.Collection: Effort
The rearing of children is considered too important to be left to the individual and should be the responsibility of the state.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Children
All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.Collection: One Day
Dear Hilde, if the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it. Love, Dad.Collection: Dad
You might say that the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents.Collection: Opponents