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The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

Jostein Gaarder

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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Subversive
Questions
Asks
People

More quotes by Jostein Gaarder

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That fact that Athens could condemn its noblest citizen to death did more than make a profound impression on him. It was to shape the course of his entire philosophic endeavor.
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Then you have a big problem, because a human is a thinking animal. If you don't think, you're not really a human.
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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.
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I wrote Sophies World in three months, but I was only writing and sleeping. I work for 14 hours a day when Im working on a book.
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going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way
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The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about.
Jostein Gaarder
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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
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Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.
Jostein Gaarder
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When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.
Jostein Gaarder
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If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.
Jostein Gaarder
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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
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All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.
Jostein Gaarder
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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
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Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible.
Jostein Gaarder
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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.
Jostein Gaarder
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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
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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
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Many of the Nazis were convicted after the war, but they were not convicted for being 'unreasonable'. They were convicted for being gruesome murderers.
Jostein Gaarder
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People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.
Jostein Gaarder
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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