A really interesting history of western philosophy told through the perspective of a young girl...complete with existential mystery story...by Jostein Gaarder, a professor from Norway.
"A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight." (53)
"Just as certain world religions say that people who do not believe in a personal God outside themselves are athiests, we say that a person who does not believe in himself is an atheist. Not believing in the splendor of one's own soul is what we call atheism." --Swami Vivekenanda (107)
"Love thy neighbor as thyself because you are your neighbor. It is an illusion that makes vou think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself." --Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a former president of India (107)
A SUPER section on the Baroque and the accompanied heightened awareness of mortality and the passage of time--think memento mori--works of art that appear at first to be vibrant still lifes but contain within them some hint of death or decay (rotting fruit, flies, dead flowers), Macbeth's "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" soliloquy comparing life to a "poor player that struts and frets his hour on stage, and then is heard no more; a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"...life as a theatre indicating that life has a definite "curtain call". (17six)
On Hume on the child philosopher: "The child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher. He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, dear Sophie, is the philosopher's greatest virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences." (213)
"Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." --Kant on the idea of a categorical imperative as moral law (257)
On Hegel: "The world spirit reaches the highest form of self-realization in absolute spirit. And this absolute spirit is art, religion, and philosophy. And of these, philosophy is the highest form of knowledge because in philosophv, the world spirit reflects on its own impact on history. So the world spirit first meets itself in philosophy. you could say, perhaps, that philosophy is the mirror of the world spirit." (285) ...a recurring motif of the mirror...of subjective vs objective, the envisioner vs the envisioned, perception and reality.
"It is ourselves that our dreams are about. We are the directors, we set up the scenario and play all the roles. A person who says he doesn't understand art doesn't know himself very well." On Freud (339)
On the artist and the subconscious: "(Freud was convinced) that we retain everything we have seen and experienced somewhere deep in our consciousness, and all these impressions can be brought to light again. When we experience a memory lapse, and a bit later 'have it on the tip of our tongue' and then later still 'suddenly remember it', we are talking about something which has lain in the unconscious and suddenly slips through the half-open door to consciousness..." interesting ideas of thresholds, the liminal state, borders and edges. (339)
And on creation: "But then suddenly it's as if all doors and all drawers fly open. Everything comes tumbling out by itself, and we can find all the words and images we need. This is when we have 'lifted the lid' of the unconscious. We can call it inspiration, Sophie, and it feels as if what we are drawing or writing is coming from an outside source." (339)
"All too frequently, reason throttles the imagination, and that's serious because without imagination, nothing really new will ever be created." (340)
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