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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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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Stupidest
Absolutely
Knew
Nothing
Thing
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People
More quotes by 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
When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.
Jostein Gaarder
Perhaps the clock hands had become so tired of going in the same direction year after year that they had suddenly begun to go the opposite way instead.
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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
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.
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
The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.
Jostein Gaarder
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.
Jostein Gaarder
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
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
Yes, we too are stardust.
Jostein Gaarder
I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.
Jostein Gaarder
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
You might say that the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents.
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
A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.
Jostein Gaarder
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.
Jostein Gaarder
To wonder about life is not something we learn it is something we forget.
Jostein Gaarder
The most subversive people are those who ask questions.
Jostein Gaarder
...long before the child learns to talk properly-and long before it learns to think philosophically-the world will have become a habit. A pity, if you ask me.
Jostein Gaarder
