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Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.
Jostein Gaarder
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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Trying
Life
Like
Gadflies
Sluggish
Athens
Sting
Horse
More quotes by Jostein Gaarder
When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.
Jostein Gaarder
You might say that the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents.
Jostein Gaarder
All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.
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
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
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.
Jostein Gaarder
A joker is a little fool who is different from everyone else. He's not a club, diamond, heart, or spade. He's not an eight or a nine, a king or a jack. He is an outsider. He is placed in the same pack as the other cards, but he doesn't belong there. Therefore, he can be removed without anybody missing him.
Jostein Gaarder
When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.
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
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
Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible.
Jostein Gaarder
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.
Jostein Gaarder
the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents. The more extreme they become, the more powerful the reaction they will have to face.
Jostein Gaarder
People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.
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
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
To wonder about life is not something we learn it is something we forget.
Jostein Gaarder
Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales
Jostein Gaarder
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
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