Quote

He could very likely have appealed for leniency. At least he could have saved his life by agreeing to leave Athens. But had he done this he would not have been Socrates. He valued his conscience--and the truth-- higher than life.

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
Least
Athens
Truth
Socrates
Done
Valued
Would
Likely
Life
Saved
Conscience
Leniency
Higher
Agreeing
Leave
Appealed

More quotes by Jostein Gaarder

Image
The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
Ladies and Gentlemen...we are floating in Space!
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 most subversive people are those who ask questions.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
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
Image
going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way
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
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
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
People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
There is no order of things except in the human mind.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good it is civilization which ruins him
Jostein Gaarder
Image
We can't own each other's past. The questioin is whether we have a future together.
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
The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.
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
Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.
Jostein Gaarder
Image
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
Image
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