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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.

Jostein Gaarder

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Jostein Gaarder
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: August 8
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Water
Dainty
Easy
Crust
Make
Fathom
Things
Skating
Like
Thin
Ice
Pirouettes
Thousands
Fathoms
Deep
Brittle

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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.
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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`.
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I want to understand more about the world while Im still here.
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Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.
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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.
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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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...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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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.
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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.
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Perhaps the clock hands had become so tired of going in the same direction year after year that they had suddenly begun to go the opposite way instead.
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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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The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about.
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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.
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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.
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A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.
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For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good it is civilization which ruins him
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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.
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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.
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A joker is a little fool who is different from everyone else. He's not a club, diamond, heart, or spade. He's not an eight or a nine, a king or a jack. He is an outsider. He is placed in the same pack as the other cards, but he doesn't belong there. Therefore, he can be removed without anybody missing him.
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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