Jostein Gaarder > Quotes

“Wisest is she who knows she does not know.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“It's not a silly question if you can't answer it.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“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 Solitaire Mystery

“Life is both sad and solemn. We are led into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other - and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“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, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“Yes, we too are stardust.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“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, The Solitaire Mystery

“The most subversive people are those who ask questions.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“Wasn’t it extraordinary to be in the world right now, wandering around in a wonderful adventure!”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“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, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“Imagine that you were on the threshold of this fairytale, sometime billions of years ago when everything was created. And you were able to choose whether you wanted to be born to a life on this planet at some point. You wouldn’t know when you were going to be born, nor how long you’d live for, but at any event it wouldn’t be more than a few years. All you’d know was that, if you chose to come into the world at some point, you’d also have to leave it again one day and go away from everything. This might cause you a good deal of grief, as lots of people think that life in the great fairytale is so wonderful that the mere thought of it ending can bring tears to their eyes. Things can be so nice here that it’s terribly painful to think that at some point the days will run out. What would you have chosen, if there had been some higher power that had gave you the choice? Perhaps we can imagine some sort of cosmic fairy in this great, strange fairytale. What you have chosen to live a life on earth at some point, whether short or long, in a hundred thousand or a hundred million years? Or would you have refused to join in the game because you didn’t like the rules? (...) I asked myself the same question maybe times during the past few weeks. Would I have elected to live a life on earth in the firm knowledge that I’d suddenly be torn away from it, and perhaps in the middle of intoxicating happiness? (...) Well, I wasn’t sure what I would have chosen. (...) 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.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Orange Girl

“The question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a persons needs.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“It takes billions of years to create a human being. And it takes only a few seconds to die.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Maya

“Our lives are part of a unique adventure... Nevertheless, most of us think the world is 'normal' and are constantly hunting for something abnormal--like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don't realize the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fit together.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“... the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“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’s World

“ان الحيوانات تولد حيوانات ... اما الانسان فلا تلده انسانا, بل تربيه ليصيح كذلك”
― جوستاين غاردر, عالم صوفي

“Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“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.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Dear Hilde, if the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it. Love, Dad.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“الأكثر ذكاء هو الذي يعرف أنه لا يعرف”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“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.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, 'I've been out in space many times but I've never seen God or angels.' And the brain surgeon said, 'And I've operated on many clever brains but I've never seen a single thought.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World