Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Become
Grey
Live
Worn
Different
Mortals
Even
Disappear
People
Dreams
Ones
Gone
Dream
Seams

More quotes by Jostein Gaarder

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
If I’d chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We are thrown together with a sprinkling of stardust.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
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
Image
As long as we are children, we have the ability to experience things around us--but then we grow used to the world. To grow up is to get drunk on sensory experience.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good it is civilization which ruins him
Jostein Gaarder