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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

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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Life
Saved
Conscience
Leniency
Higher
Agreeing
Leave
Appealed
Least
Athens
Truth
Socrates
Done
Valued
Would
Likely

More quotes by 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.
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To wonder about life is not something we learn it is something we forget.
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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.
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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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People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.
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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There is no order of things except in the human mind.
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.
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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
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I want to understand more about the world while Im still here.
Jostein Gaarder
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Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.
Jostein Gaarder
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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
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going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way
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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Yes, we too are stardust.
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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Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible.
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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All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.
Jostein Gaarder
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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