Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
17 quotes
"Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others."
"When we sense something, it is due to the movement of atoms in space. When I see the moon it is because "moon atoms" penetrate my eye."
"Socrates himself said, 'One thing only I know, and this is that I know nothing.' Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers. Moreover, it can be so dangerous to say in public that it can cost you your life. The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers."
"But if the history of mankind was her own history, in a way she was thousands of years old."
"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."
"Was Jesus a christian?"
"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."
"All a man can see while looking at the sky are cosmic fossils of thousands and millions of years ago. The only thing an astrologer can predict, is the past."
"Everything you know gained from experience"
"It's not a silly question if you can't answer it."
"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."
"The faculty of vision can vary from person to person. On the other hand, we can rely on what our reason tells us because that is the same for everyone"
"If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent."
"Since the Renaissance, people have had to get used to living their life on a random planet in the vast galaxy."
"Even though God could create all kinds of things, he could hardly create himself before he had a "self" to create with. So there was only one possibility left: God had always existed. But she had already rejected that possibility! Everything that existed had to have a beginning."
"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"
"People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent."