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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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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Love
Simple
Understand
Stills
Still
Dad
Human
Dear
Humans
Couldn
Enough
Stupid
Would
Brain

More quotes by Jostein Gaarder

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There is always Joker to see through the delusion. Generation succeeds generation, but there is a fool walking the earth who is never ravaged by time.
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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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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
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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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Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible.
Jostein Gaarder
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The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.
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
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What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig.
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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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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We can't own each other's past. The questioin is whether we have a future together.
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.
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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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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For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good it is civilization which ruins him
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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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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Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.
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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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