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The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.

Jostein Gaarder

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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Philosopher
Wonder
Thing
Good
Philosophers
Faculty
Require

More quotes by Jostein Gaarder

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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
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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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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.
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going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way
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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.
Jostein Gaarder
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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.
Jostein Gaarder
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Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales
Jostein Gaarder
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The question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a persons needs.
Jostein Gaarder
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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.
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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Hegel said that `truth` is subjective, thus rejecting the existence of any `truth` above or beyond human reason. All knowledge is human knowledge.
Jostein Gaarder
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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
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Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible.
Jostein Gaarder
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We do not believe in the notion of God's chosen people. We laugh at this people's fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as God's chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism.
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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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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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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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.
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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Wisest is she who knows she does not know.
Jostein Gaarder