Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug...

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....

If you believed in Christianity or Islam it was called ‘faith’, but if you believed in astrology or friday the thirteenth it was Superstition!

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...

When you realize there is something you don’t understand, then you’re generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.

It was all too easy to make things up, it was like skating on thin ice, it was like doing dainty pirouettes on a brittle crust over water thousands of fathoms deep.

When we die, as when the scenes have been fixed on to celluloid and the scenery is pulled down and burnt — we are phantoms in the memories of our descendants. Then we are ghosts,...

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...

Man is the measure of all things’, said the Sophist Protagora (c. 485-410 B.C.). By that he meant that the question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be...

Not everybody can let himself drift along the flow of history. Some of us have to stop to pick up what’s washed up on the banks of the river.

Wisest is she who knows she does not know.

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...

Kita melahirkan dan dilahirkan oleh sebuah jiwa yang tidak kita kenalKita adalah teka-teki yang tak teterka oleh siapa pun. Kita adalah dongeng yang terperangkap dalam khayalannya sendiri.Kita adalah apa yang terus berjalan tanpa pernah tiba...

It takes billions of years to create a human being. And it takes only a few seconds to die.

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.

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

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.

Kad umrem, prekinuce se jedna srebrna nit sa nanizanim glatkim biserima koji ce se rasuti po zemlji i otkotrljati kuci svojim majkama skoljkama na dnu mora.Ko ce zaroniti za mojim biserima kad mene ne bude...

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

In the eyeball there is a clash between creation and reflection. The two-way globes of sight are magical revolving doors where the creative spirit meets itself in the created spirit. The eye that surveys the...

Wir werden alt und grau. Wir werden eines Tages verschlissen sein und aus der Welt verschwinden. Mit unseren Träumen ist das anders. Sie können in anderen Menschen weiterleben, wenn es uns schon längst, längst nicht...

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

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...

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...

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.

Nad nami migotały gwiazdy niczym sygnały Morse’a wysyłane z utraconej przeszłości.

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...

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...

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...

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.

A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant’s trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur.

Everything you know gained from experience

How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.

The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.

Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.

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...

Kamu menulis: “Kita sudah mengatakan A, maka kita harus menyebutkan seluruh huruf.” Namun masalah itu sekarang sudah sedemikian luar biasa hingga aku menjadi ragu. Maka, kukutipkan puisi singkat dari Jan Erik Vold mengenai hal itu:”Siapa...

Kitalah planet yang hidup itu, Sophie! Kitalah kapal besar yang berlayar mengelilingi matahari yang membakar alam raya. Tapi kita masing-masing adalah juga sebuah kapal bermuatan gen-gen yang melayari kehidupan. Jika kita sudah membawa muatan ini...

What a lot of things I don’t need!

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...

A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.

I wonder whether the Christmas feeling has anything to do with the sixth sense. Perhaps we’re a little more the angels at Christmas than we are during the rest of the year. And Christmas is...

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...

I’ve nothing against eye make-up and lipstick. But the fact is that we’re actually living on a planet in space. For me that’s an extraordinary thought. It’s mind-boggling just to think about the existence of...

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...

Možda se nijedna druga vrsta intimnosti ne može uporediti sa dva polgeda koja se susreću sa istom sigurnošću i odlučnošću i jednostavnošću odbijaju da se puste.

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...

The rearing of children is considered too important to be left to the individual and should be the responsibility of the state.

It’s not a silly question if you can’t answer it.

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...