“The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder. Babies have this faculty. That is not surprising. After a few short months in the womb they slip out into a brand new reality. But as they grow up, the faculty of wonder seems to diminish. Why is this? Do you know?
If a newborn baby could talk, it would probably say something about what an extraordinary world it had come into. We see how it looks around and reaches out in curiosity to everything it sees.
As words are gradually acquired, the child looks up and says "Bow-wow" every time it sees a dog. It jumps up and down in its stroller, waving its arms: "Bow-wow!" "Bow-wow!"
We who are older and wiser may feel somewhat exhausted by the child's enthusiasm. "All right, all right, it's a bow-wow," we say, unimpressed. "Please be still." We are not enthralled. We have seen a dog before.
This rapturous performance may repeat itself hundreds of times before the child learns to pass a dog without going crazy. Or an elephant, or a hippopotamus. But long before the child learns to talk properly--and long before it learns to think philosophically--the world will have become a habit.”
If a newborn baby could talk, it would probably say something about what an extraordinary world it had come into. We see how it looks around and reaches out in curiosity to everything it sees.
As words are gradually acquired, the child looks up and says "Bow-wow" every time it sees a dog. It jumps up and down in its stroller, waving its arms: "Bow-wow!" "Bow-wow!"
We who are older and wiser may feel somewhat exhausted by the child's enthusiasm. "All right, all right, it's a bow-wow," we say, unimpressed. "Please be still." We are not enthralled. We have seen a dog before.
This rapturous performance may repeat itself hundreds of times before the child learns to pass a dog without going crazy. Or an elephant, or a hippopotamus. But long before the child learns to talk properly--and long before it learns to think philosophically--the world will have become a habit.”
(From Sophie´s World)
1. “Could she really believe that everything was one divine “I”? Could she believe that she carried within her a soul that was a “spark from the fire”? If it was true, then she was truly a divine creature.”
2. “Dear Hilde, If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn’t understand it. Love, Dad.”
3. “Good and evil are like a white and a black thread that make up a single strand. Sometimes they are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to untangle them.”
4. “(…) Life consists of a long chain of coincidences.”
5. “Remind yourself that you are only living a minuscule part of all nature’s life. You are part of an enormous whole.
6. "There are two ways of becoming wise. One way is to travel out into the world and to see as much as possible of God's creation. The other is to put down roots in one spot and to study everything that happens there in as much detail as you can. The trouble is that it's impossible to do both at the same time."
7. “The whole world had become almost like a living person, and it felt as if that person were Sophie herself. The world is me, she thought. The great big universe that she had often felt to be so unfathomable and terrifying - was her own “I”. Now, too, the universe was enourmous and majestic, but now it was herself that was so big.”
