Philosophy Quote by Jostein Gaarder — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“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. Of course, you have seen the sun and the moon, the stars in the sky, and everything that moves, but you haven't really seen it at all. It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw: He sees too clearly and too much.”

“If just one of [those people] experiences life as a crazy adventure--and I mean that he, or she, experiences this every single day... Then he or she is a joker in a pack of cards.”

“But understanding will always require some effort. You probably wouldn't admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.”

“Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you…”

“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.”

“You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education.”

“I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.”

“The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.”

“Rebelling is just obeying in reverse.”

“The premise of the Taker story is 'the world belongs to man'. … The premise of the Leaver story is 'man belongs to the world'.”