334 Quotes by Jostein Gaarder

I didn't feel lonely until there was something to yearn for. Loneliness and longing are two sides of the same coin.

Ich bin nicht nur ich selbst. Ich habe eine tiefere und fundamentalere Identität. Ich bin ein Vertreter der Menschheit , und die Menschheit wird mich überleben.

It's not him who's disturbed. But he likes to disturb others--to shake them out of their rut.

We don't learn anything there [school]. The difference between schoolteachers and philosophers us that school-teachers think they know a lot of stuff that they try to force down our throats. Philosophers try to figure things out together with the pupils

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.

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.

You can frequently observe inspiration at work in children who are overtired. They are sometimes so extremely overtired that they seem to be wide awake. Suddenly they start telling a story as if they are finding words they haven't yet learned. They have, though; the words and the ideas have lain 'latent' in their consciousness, but now, when all caution and all censorship have let go, they are surfacing.

يرى امفيدوكليس أن قوتين مختلفتين تعملان في الطبيعة: الحب والكره. ما يوحد الأشياء هو الحب، ما يفرقها هو الكره.

Wisest is she who knows she does not know.