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Let me put it more precisely: The ability to give birth is a natural characteristic. In the same way, everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.

Jostein Gaarder

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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Giving
Philosophical
Way
Birth
Everybody
Characteristic
Ability
Innate
Natural
Grasp
Use
Precisely
Give
Truths
Reason
Characteristics

More quotes by Jostein Gaarder

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The most subversive people are those who ask questions.
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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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When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves.
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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.
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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
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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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Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales
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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.
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As a Roman philosopher, Cicero, said of him a few hundred years later, Socrates 'called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil.
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Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.
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If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.
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I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.
Jostein Gaarder
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...long before the child learns to talk properly-and long before it learns to think philosophically-the world will have become a habit. A pity, if you ask me.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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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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.
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I think about my editor when I write. She's a good friend, too.
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According to Kierkegaard, rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual's life. It is important to find `the truth for me`.
Jostein Gaarder