Gaarder Quotes & Sayings

The more self-evident a thing is to one's reason, the more certain it is that it exists — Jostein Gaarder

The earliest Greek philosopher's criticized Homer's mythology because the gods resembled mortals too much and were just as egotistic and treacherous. — Jostein Gaarder

The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body. — Jostein Gaarder

The word 'influenza' actually means a malign influence from the stars. — Jostein Gaarder

But she'd managed to find her way into our reality, perhaps because she had an important mission here, perhaps because she was here to save us from what people call the monotony of life. — Jostein Gaarder

Nowadays, people of many lands and cultures are being intermingled more and more. Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists may live in the same apartment building. In which case it is more important to accept each other's beliefs than to ask why everyone does not believe the same thing — Jostein Gaarder

We cry when something is sad. Then we often shed a tear when something's beautiful as well. When something's funny or ugly, we laugh. Perhaps we are sad when something is beautiful because we know that it won't last for ever. Then, we start laughing when something is ugly because we understand that it's only a joke. — Jostein Gaarder

The memories float further and further away from that which once created them. — Jostein Gaarder

And to be quite frank, that is precisely what we need philosophers for. We do not need them to choose a beauty queen or the day's bargain in tomatoes. (This is why they are often unpopular!) Philosophers will try to ignore highly topical affairs and instead try to draw people's attention to what is eternally 'true,' eternally 'beautiful,' and eternally 'good. — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

The harder you try to forget something, the more you think about it unconsciously. — Jostein Gaarder

rationalist believes in reason as the primary source of knowledge, and he may also believe that man has certain innate ideas that exist in the mind prior to all experience. And the clearer such ideas may be, the more certain it is that they correspond to reality. You — Jostein Gaarder

He just asked questions, especially to begin a conversation, as if he knew nothing. In the course of the discussion he would generally get his opponents to recognize the weakness of their arguments, and, forced into a corner, they would finally be obliged to realize what was right and what was wrong. — Jostein Gaarder

When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way to ourselves. — Jostein Gaarder

Kant's philosophy states that it is inherent in us. He agreed with Hume that we cannot know with certainty what the world is like "in itself." We can only know the what the world is like "for me" of for everybody. — Jostein Gaarder

If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent. — Jostein Gaarder

To Hegel, history was like a running river. Every tiny movement in the water at a given spot in the river is determined by the falls and eddies in the water higher upstream. But these movements are determined, too, by the rocks and bends in the river at the point where you are observing it.
the history of thought
or of reason
is like this river. The thoughts that are washed along with the current of past tradition, as well as the material conditions prevailing at the time, help to determine how you think. You can therefore never claim that any particular thought is correct for ever and ever. But the thought can be correct from where you stand — Jostein Gaarder

The most subversive people are those who ask questions. — Jostein Gaarder

You can never know if a person forgives you when you wrong them. Therefore it is existentially important to you. It is a question you are intensely concerned with. Neither can you know whether a person loves you. It's something you just have to believe or hope. But these things are more important to you than the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You don't think about the law of cause and effect or about modes of perception when you are in the middle of your first kiss. — Jostein Gaarder

The aim of the early Greek philosophers was to find natural, rather than supernatural, explanations for natural processes. — Jostein Gaarder

Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal - and that no man can escape his destiny. — Jostein Gaarder

I never tried to ingratiate myself with great writers. When a great writer has nothing to say, he does something else, like chopping firewood. A great writer doesn't try to find something to write about, he only writes when he has to. I was no great writer. I've always had the need to unload my thoughts, and so had to live with a kind of mental incontinence, but I've never felt forced to write a novel. Nor, for that matter, have I ever chopped firewood. — Jostein Gaarder

All stars fall at some time. But a star is only a tiny spark from the great beacon in the sky. — Jostein Gaarder

THE ONLY THING WE REQUIRE TO BE GOOD PHILOSOPHERS IS THE FACULTY OF WONDER. Babies — Jostein Gaarder

Why was it so difficult to be absorbed in the most vital and, in a way, the most natural of all questions? — Jostein Gaarder

A sensation is always the same as a piece of news, and a piece of news never lives long. — Jostein Gaarder

In the eyeball there is a clash between creation and reflection. The two-way globes of sight are magical revolving doors where the creative spirit meets itself in the created spirit. The eye that surveys the universe is the universe's own eye. — Jostein Gaarder

But the dream of something unlikely has its own special name. We call it hope. — Jostein Gaarder

Thus the 'fortune-teller' is trying to foresee something that is really quite unforeseeable. This is characteristic of all forms of foreseeing. And precisely because what they 'see' is so vague, it is hard to repudiate fortune-tellers' claims. — Jostein Gaarder

To wonder about life is not something we learn; it is something we forget. — Jostein Gaarder

Maybe we can comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never comprehend ourselves. Even less can we expect to comprehend the universe. — Jostein Gaarder

Sophie left the den and wandered about in the large garden. She tried to forget what she had learned at school, especially in science classes.
If she had grown up in this garden without knowing anything at all about nature, how would she feel about the spring?
Would she try to invent some kind of explanation for why it suddenly started to rain one day?
Would she work out some fantasy to explain where the snow went and why the sun rose in the morning? — Jostein Gaarder

I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig
or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery. — Jostein Gaarder

Hume emphasized that the expectation of one thing following another does not lie in the things themselves, but in our mind. And expectation, as we have seen, is associated with habit. Going back to the child again, it would not have stared in amazement if when one billiard ball struck the other, both had remained perfectly motionless. When we speak of the 'laws of nature' or of 'cause and effect,' we are actually speaking of what we expect, rather than what is 'reasonable.' The laws of nature are neither reasonable nor unreasonable, they simply are. The expectation that the white billiard ball will move when it is struck by the black billiard ball is therefore not innate. We are not born with a set of expectations as to what the world is like or how things in the world behave. The world is like it is, and it's something we get to know — Jostein Gaarder

I don't belong anywhere.
I am neither a heart, a diamond, a club, nor a spade. I am neither a King, a Jack, an Eight, nor an Ace.
As I am here - I am merely the Joker, and who that is I have had to find out for myself.
Every time I toss my head, the jingling bells remind me that I have no family.
I have no number - and no trade either.
I have gone around observing your activities from the outside.
Because of this I have also been able to see things to which you have been blind.
Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake.
It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw:
he sees too deeply and too much.
Truth is a lonely thing. — Jostein Gaarder

Is it true that sometimes you're so suspicious, you turn quite black inside? — Jostein Gaarder

But she who wins the lot of life must also draw the lot of death, since the lot of life is death — Jostein Gaarder

Empedocles believed that there were two different forces at work in nature. He called them love and strife. Love binds things together, and strife separates them. — Jostein Gaarder

For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good; it is civilization which ruins him — Jostein Gaarder

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

It was rather like having been color-blind. She had seen some shadows but had not seen the clear ideas. — Jostein Gaarder

The perspectives are so labyrinthine that several possibilities must be kept open. If there is a Creator, what is he? And if there isn't a Creator, what is this world? — Jostein Gaarder

I wonder whether the Christmas feeling has anything to do with the sixth sense. Perhaps we're a little more the angels at Christmas than we are during the rest of the year. And Christmas is about all the other senses. I can smell Christmas, I can taste Christmas, and I can see and hear it. — Jostein Gaarder

We are thrown together with a sprinkling of stardust. — Jostein Gaarder

Going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

No day is alike - I do many other things, and I'm very active in the environmental movement. — Jostein Gaarder

The important thing is not what you may think is precisely right or wrong. What matters is that you choose to have an opinion at all on what is right or wrong. — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

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

It's not a silly question if you can't answer it. — Jostein Gaarder

The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about. — Jostein Gaarder

Sophie saw that the philosopher was right. Grownups took the world for granted. They had let themselves be lulled into the enchanted sleep of their humdrum existence once and for all. 'You've just grown so used to the world that nothing surprises you any more. — Jostein Gaarder

Some are more equal than others. — Jostein Gaarder

Nothing happens accidentally. everything happens through necessity, so it is of little use to complain when fate comes knocking at the door. — Jostein Gaarder

But could anything have always existed? Something deep down inside her protested at the idea. Surely everything that exists must have had a beginning? So space must sometime have been created out of something else. But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring the problem. At some point, something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn't that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always existed? — Jostein Gaarder

If we don't know where we are going, it can be helpful to know where we come from. — Jostein Gaarder

But flying across the centuries would have been a hefty job even for a very ironic goose. Crossing the Swedish provinces is far easier — Jostein Gaarder

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

We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden. — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

When you read this you may already have met Hermes. In case you haven't, I'll add that he is a dog. But don't worry. he is very good-tempered - and moreover, a good deal more intelligent than a lot of people. In any event he never tries to give the impression of being cleverer than he is. — Jostein Gaarder

Nothing is ever actually invented by the mind. The mind puts things together and constructs false ideas — Jostein Gaarder

WHEN WE EVENTUALLY ARRIVED in Venice late in the afternoon, we had to park the car in a large lot before we were allowed to enter the town itself, because Venice doesn't have a single proper street. — Jostein Gaarder

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

Who are you?
Where does the world come from?
What annoying questions! And anyway where did the letters come from? That was just as mysterious, almost. — Jostein Gaarder

What you did was to draw a conclusion from a descriptive sentence
That person
wants to live too'
to what we call a normative sentence: 'Therefore you ought not to kill them.' From the point of view of reason this is nonsense. You might just as well say 'There are lots of people who cheat on their taxes, therefore I ought to cheat on my taxes too.' Hume said you can never draw conclusions from is sentences to ought sentences. Nevertheless it is exceedingly common, not least in newspaper articles, political party programs, and speeches. — Jostein Gaarder

Dear Hilde,
I assume you're still celebrating your 15th birthday. Or is it the morning after? Anyways, it makes no difference to your present. In a sense, that will last a life time. But I'd like to wish you happy birthday one more time. Perhaps you understand now why I send the cards to Sophie. I am sure she will pass them on to you.
P.S. Mom said you lost your wallet. I hereby promise to reimburse you the 150 crowns. You will probably be able to get another school I.D. before they close for the summer vacation.
Love from Dad. — Jostein Gaarder

A composition - and every work of art is one - is created in a wondrous interplay between imagination and reason, or between mind and reflection. For there will always be an element of chance in the creative process. — Jostein Gaarder

From the point of view of pure logic or philosophy, there will often be a dialectical tension between two concepts.
For example ...
If I reflect on the concept of 'being,' I will be obliged to introduce the opposite concept, that of 'nothing.' You can't reflect on your existence without immediately realizing that you won't always exist. The tension between 'being' and 'nothing' becomes resolved in the concept of 'becoming.' Because if something is in the process of becoming, it both is and is not. — Jostein Gaarder

The expectation of one thing following another does not lie in the things themselves, but in our mind. And expectation is associated with habit. — Jostein Gaarder

Sophie found philosophy doubly exciting because she was able to follow all the ideas by using her own common sense - without having to remember everything she had learned at school. She decided that philosophy was not something you can learn; but perhaps you can learn to think philosophically. — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

Hegel believed that the basis of human cognition changed from one generation to the next. There were therefore no 'eternal truths', no timeless reason. The only fixed point philosophy can hold on to is history itself. — Jostein Gaarder

Democritus believed that the soul was made up of special round, smooth 'soul atoms.' When a human being died, the soul atoms flew in all directions, and could then become part of a new soul formation. — Jostein Gaarder

As soon as she concentrated on being alive now, the thought of dying also came into her mind. — Jostein Gaarder

At School she had trouble concentrating on what the teacher said. They seemed to talk only about unimportant things. Why couldn't they talk about what a human being is - or about what the world is and how it came into being? — Jostein Gaarder

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth. - GOETHE — Jostein Gaarder

So we go around pigeonholing everything. We put cows in cowsheds, horses in stables, pigs in pigsties, and chickens in chicken coops. The same happens when Sophie Amundsen tidies up her room. She puts her books on the bookshelf, her schoolbooks in her schoolbag, and her magazines in the drawer. She folds her clothes neatly and puts them in the closet - underwear on one shelf, sweaters on another, and socks in a drawer on their own. Notice that we do the same thing in our minds. we distinguish between things made of stone, things made of wool, and things made of rubber. We distinguish between things that are alive or dead, and we distinguish between vegetables, animal, and human — Jostein Gaarder

The story goes that one day Socrates stood gazing at a stall that sold all
kinds of wares. Finally he said, What a lot of things I don't need! — Jostein Gaarder

The Cynics emphasized that true happiness is not found in external advantages such as material luxury, political power, or good health. True happiness lies in not being dependent on such random and fleeting things. And because happiness does not consist in benefits of this kind, it is within everyone's reach. moreover, having once been attained, it can never be lost. — Jostein Gaarder

Kierkegaard also said that truth is 'subjective'. By this he did not mean it doesn't matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are 'true for me'. — Jostein Gaarder

Plato found mathematics very absorbing because mathematical states never change. — Jostein Gaarder

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. — Jostein Gaarder

Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a 'sound mind in a sound body'. — Jostein Gaarder

Was Jesus a christian? — Jostein Gaarder

When we gaze at a star in the Milky Way which is 50,000 light-years away from our sun, we are looking back 50,000 years in time."
"The idea is much too big for my little head."
"The only way we can look out into space, then, is to look back in time. We can never know what the universe is like now. We only know what it was like then. When we look up at a star that is thousands of light-years away, we are really traveling thousands of years back in the history of space. — Jostein Gaarder

The world becomes a dream, and the dream becomes reality. — Jostein Gaarder

Nevertheless we are free individuals, and this freedom condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do. Sartre emphasized that man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we "must" go to work, or we "must" live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live "authentically" or "truly". — Jostein Gaarder

I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers. — Jostein Gaarder

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

Throughout the entire history of philosophy, philosophers have sought to discover what man is - or what human nature is. But Sartre believed that man has no such eternal nature to fall back on. It is therefore useless to search for the meaning of life in general. We are condemned to improvise. We are like actors dragged onto the stage without having learned our lines, with no script and no prompter to whisper stage directions to us. We must decide for ourselves how to live. — Jostein Gaarder

The universe is a great mystery. — Jostein Gaarder

At some point something must have come from nothing. — Jostein Gaarder

An answer is always on the stretch of road that is behind you. Only a question can point the way forward. — Jostein Gaarder

Hegel claimed that the 'world spirit' is developing toward an ever-expanding knowledge of itself. It's the same with rivers
they become broader and broader as they get nearer to the sea. According to Hegel, history is the story of the 'world spirit' gradually coming to consciousness of itself. Although the world has always existed, human culture and human development have made the world spirit increasingly conscious of its intrinsic value. — Jostein Gaarder

Watching Limelight with my mother really brought home to me the brevity of life. I realized in a little while that I would die and leave everything behind. Unlike vain people, I had the ability to think this right through. I had no difficulty in picturing full theatres and cinemas long after myself was gone. Not everybody can do that. Many are so intoxicated with sensual impressions that they're not able to grasp that there is a world out there. And therefore they're not able to comprehend the opposite either - they don't understand that one day the world will end. We, however, are only a few missing heartbeats away from being divorced from humanity forever. — Jostein Gaarder

As you can imagine, the wandering Sophists created bitter wrangling in Athens by pointing out that there were no absolute norms for what was right or wrong. — Jostein Gaarder

The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I don't want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum. — Jostein Gaarder