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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
Like
Thin
Ice
Pirouettes
Thousands
Fathoms
Deep
Brittle
Water
Dainty
Easy
Crust
Make
Fathom
Things
Skating

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The most subversive people are those who ask questions.
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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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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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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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The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.
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going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way
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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.
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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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We are thrown together with a sprinkling of stardust.
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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.
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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.
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Wisest is she who knows she does not know.
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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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the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents. The more extreme they become, the more powerful the reaction they will have to face.
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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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Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.
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Every single morning I wake with a bang,' he said. 'It's as though the fact that I am alive is injected into me I am a character in a fairytale, bursting with life.
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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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Yes, we too are stardust.
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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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