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

“Although you may not stumble across a Martian in the garden, you might stumble across yourself. The day that happens, you'll probably also scream a little. And that'll be perfectly all right, because it's not every day you realize you're a living planet dweller on a little island in the universe.”

“A true philosopher must never give up.”

“A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.…We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it. Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference beween us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick.”

“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.”

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

“The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.”

“Get close to grass and you’ll see a star.”

“You do not write your life with words...You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you”

“If I had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write: "I recognize only one duty, and that is to love.”

“We are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later.”

“A photograph does not present us with ‘likenesses’ of things; it presents us, we want to say, with the things themselves. But wanting to say that may well make us ontologically restless. ‘Photographs present us with things themselves’ sounds, and ought to sound, paradoxical … It is no less paradoxical or false to hold up a photograph of Garbo and say, ‘That is not Garbo,’ if all you mean is that the object you are holding up is not a human creature. Such troubles in notating so obvious a fact suggest that we do not know what a photograph is; we do not know how to place it ontologically. We might say that we don’t know how to think of the connection between a photograph and what it is a photograph of.”