Sophie's World Quotes

Wisest is she who knows she does not know.

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

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 disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.

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

You speak rabbit?” asked Princess Sophie. “Of course,” said Lady Ariana. “And cat, dog, mouse, pig, and chicken. Fish, too. I am a magician, after all.

Yes, we too are stardust.

The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

Everyone's moving on without me, into a world I don't understand.

Wasn’t it extraordinary to be in the world right now, wandering around in a wonderful adventure!

Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person's name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and "fruitfulness" is drawn in.

The question of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a persons needs.

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 and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.

... the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...

The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about.

You can never know if a person forgives you when you wrong them. Therefore it is existentially important to you. It is a question you are intensely concerned with. Neither can you know whether a person loves you. It’s something you just have to believe or hope. But these things are more important to you than the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You don't think about the law of cause and effect or about modes of perception when you are in the middle of your first kiss.

Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.

How do we keep it?” asked Princess Sophie. “How do we keep the spirit of Christmas?” “That’s the real magic,” said Lady Ariana. “If we love something so much, we have to give it away. When we do that, we get to keep it ourselves, too.

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

I'm allergic to family occasions. Sometimes I think we'd do better as dandelion seeds-no family, no history, just floating off into the world, each on our own piece of fluff.

All the magic in the world can’t simplify affairs of the heart.” (Sophie's dad)

الأكثر ذكاء هو الذي يعرف أنه لا يعرف

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.

Maybe we can comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never comprehend ourselves. Even less can we expect to comprehend the universe.

No matter how many times the elves explained the "illumination in a darkened world" analogy, she would never stop thinking it was weird to have a school named after glowing fungus.

من المستحيل أن يكون الإنسان سعيداً إذا تصرف على عكس قناعاته

That's the trouble with having the whole world love you. One day, you wake up and it's flirting with your best friend instead. And you don't know what to do. You're thrown.

And Sophie and Agatha lived happily ever after, for girls don't need princes for love to call... No, they don't need princes in their fairy tales at all

I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig--or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery.

People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.

إن الميزة الوحيدة اللازمة لكي يصبح الإنسان فيلسوفاً جيداً هي قدرته على الدهشة

So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…

إن الحياه محبطه و مأساويه, تتركنا ندخل عالماً رائعاً, نتلاقى, نتتعارف, نقطع معاً جزءا من الطريق, ثم نتوه عن بعضنا البعض, و نختفي بالسرعه ذاتها التي جئنا بها في المره الأولى

إن القدرة على التمييز بين الخير و الشر تكمن في عقل الإنسان ، لا في المجتمع .

When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it's not, and I need to do it again. (Confessions of a Shopaholic-the movie)

من المستحيل أن نشعر أننا احياء إذا لم نفكر أيضا بأننا سنموت, كما أننا لا نستطيع التفكير بموتنا دون أن نحس و في اللحظه نفسها بالمعجزه الغريبه معجزة كوننا أحياء.

Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours." "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything." "Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies." "What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead!

A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, 'I've been out in space many times but I've never seen God or angels.' And the brain surgeon said, 'And I've operated on many clever brains but I've never seen a single thought.

Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. What I might have set down with more accuracy would have been: Someday I will write about Sophie's life and death, and thereby help demonstrate how absolute evil is never extinguished from the world. Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response. The query: "At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?" And the answer: "Where was man?

I wish I could give you a world where everything was perfect and shining and safe. I used to think that's what we had..." He shook his head. "I've realized now that our world doesn't define us. We define our world. And I hope you'll fill yours with as much light and happiness as you can." "You realize how silly that sounds, right?" "I do. But after everything that's happened, I think we could all use a bit more silly in our lives.

And what is there to be joyful about?" I asked honestly, thinking on the images of dead children curled into themselves at the village. Another burst of silent tears streamed down. "Life, Sophie. They still live. They breathe, they love each other, they find joy in the world around them for no other reason than because they are children. They are resilient. They will always rise above. Always. It is a curious facet of the innocent young.

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 important not to reject the possibility of finding a white crow. You might almost say that hunting for 'the white crow' is science's principal task.

The problem with life is, we often do things that will ultimately be self-destructive and make us unhappy, yet in that moment it seems like the best idea in the world. You have to be careful of moments - they're tricksy things.

لقد كان سقراط بتظاهره عدم المعرفة ، يجبر الناس على التفكير كان يعرف أن يلعب دور الجاهل أو على الأقل دور من هو أكثر غباء .

Sophie and Agatha locked eyes one last time but neither screamed for the other. Once true loves, the two girls now pulled apart like strangers, each in the arms of a boy, Good with Good, Evil with Evil... Both of their wishes granted.

وصلت صوفي إلى أن الفلسفة ليست شيئاً يمكن تعلمه، وإنما يمكن تعلم التفكير بطريقة فلسفية.

المُحزن أننا نتعود ، ونحن نكبر ، على أشياء كثيره غير جاذبية الأرض . ونخلص لأن نرى كل شيء طبيعيا

الذي يعيش بدون عمل يدور في فراغ

Take care of yourself, okay?” Sophie whispered. Her sister nodded. “And you keep . . . saving the world.

The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body.

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.

Prepare yourself, Price, ‘cause I’m about to rock your world.

هناك من يمضون أوقاتهم في السرقة و الكذب و النميمة والافتراء على الآخرين .ألا تعتقدين أنهم لا يعرفون في أعماقهم أن هذا سيئ ، أو أنه غير مبرر على الأقل ؟ أتعتقدين أن هذا يجعلهم سعداء ؟ سقراط لم يكن يعتقد ذلك .

Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales

They weren’t friends. And they weren’t actually sisters. They were just two different girls from two different worlds.

She was a girl with strange abilities and a different way of looking at the world. What she decided to do with these things was up to her.

The more you engage with the outside world, the more you’ll be able to turn down the volume on those worries. You’ll see that they’re unfounded. You’ll see that the world is a very busy and varied place and most people have the attention span of a gnat. They’ve already forgotten what happened. They don’t think about it. There will have been five more sensations since your incident.

Life is both sad and solemn. We are let 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 disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.

At some point, something must have come from nothing.

So I buy it. The most perfect little cardigan in the world. People will call me the Girl in the Gray Cardigan. I’ll be able to live in it. Really, it’s an investment.

going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way

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.

To prove religious faith by human reason is rationalistic claptrap.

The more she thought about it, the more she realised both sides had lost an important alternate perspective. And maybe that was what she'd been created for. A girl from both worlds, who'd seen the follies and triumphs of each side. And her job was to shake things up and do something new.

Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as helping people to 'give birth' to correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. . . . Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.

Ladies and Gentlemen...we are floating in Space!

الطفل الصغير لا يجد أية متعة في رؤية قوانين الطبيعة تتحطم، لأنه لم يعرفها بعد، إنه لم يصبح بعد عبدًا لذلك الانتظار الذي تضعنا فيه العادة، الطفل لا يحمل أفكارًا مسبقة، وتلك ميزة أساسية من ميزات الفيلسوف الكبير، إنه يرى العالم بدون الأفكار المسبقة التي تشوه رؤيتنا نحن البالغين.

Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a 'sound mind in a sound body'.

يكمن سر الفعالية لدى سقراط في أنه لم يحاول تعليم الناس بل على العكس ، كان يعطي الانطباع بأنه يريدأن يتعلم من محدثه لم يكن يعمل كأستاذ رديء ...على العكس كان يناقش و يجادل .

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 softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care

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.

If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.

without imagination, nothing really new will ever be created.

Everyone wants the world to see them as they are. The truth isn’t the problem. The problem is that the world doesn’t always make the truth safe for us to share.

وكلما كانت تعي أكثر أنها تحيا، كلما كانت فكرة أنها لن تظل هنا إلى الأبد، تتسرب إلى نفسها. أي حظ استثنائي أن تكون حية؟

It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world.

الذي يعرف الخير يفعل الخير

I invite the confessionals of men. I am not a stranger to them. Absorbing the guilt and the sorrow is something the world expects of women.

The world was a merciless place. Hard and cruel. Except when you found someone to trust and love. Life, however fleeting, possessed meaning then.

Vianne didn’t hesitate. She knew now that no one could be neutral—not anymore—and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie’s life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need. She reached for the toddler, took him in her arms.

المحزن، أننا نتعود، ونحن نكبر على أشياء كثيرة غير جاذبية الأرض، ونخلص لأن نرى كل شيء طبيعياً

إن للخير كما للشر مكانه الطبيعي في نظام الأشياء، و برأي هيراقليطس، بدون هذه اللعبة الإلزامية بين هذه الأضداد، لا يعود للعالم وجود

Sometimes, when I can't get to sleep, I imagine all the rules I'd invent if I ever got to be in charge of the world.

When we gaze at a star in the Milky Way which is 50,000 light-years away from our sun, we are looking back 50,000 years in time." "The idea is much too big for my little head." "The only way we can look out into space, then, is to look back in time. We can never know what the universe is like now. We only know what it was like then. When we look up at a star that is thousands of light-years away, we are really traveling thousands of years back in the history of space.

يجب ألا نكون جبناء ولا متهورين ، وانما شجعانا فالقليل من الشجاعة جبن ، والكثير منها وقاحة لا فائدة منها .كذلك يجب ألا نتصرف كبخلاءولا كمبذرين انما ككرماء.هنا أيضا القليل من الكرم يكون بخلا والكثير منه يكون مثل رمي النقود من النافذة .

Many people think of our times as being the last before the end of the world. The evidence of horror all around us makes this seem possible. But isn't that an idea of only minor importance? Doesn't every human being, no matter which era he lives in, always have to reckon with being accountable to God at any moment? Can I know whether I'll be alive tomorrow morning? A bomb could destroy all of us tonight. And then my guilt would not be one bit less than if I perished together with the arth and the stars.

Jennifer Aniston and Her New Man'" I read the words aloud uncertainly. "What new man? Why would she need a new man?" "Oh yes." Nicole follows my gaze, unconcerned. "You know she split up from Brad Pitt?" "Jennifer and Brad split?" I stare up at her, aghast. "You can't be serious! They can't have done!" "He went off with Angelina Jolie. They've got a daughter." "No!" I wail. "But Jen and Brad were so perfect together! They looked so good and they had that lovely wedding picture and everything...." "They're divorced now." Nicole shrugs, like it's no big deal. I can't get over this. Jennifer and Brad divorced. The world is a different place.

إن الحياة والموت يلتصقان ظهراً لظهر. فمن المستحيل أن نشعر أننا أحياء إذا لم نفكر أيضاً بأننا نموت يوماً، كما أننا لا نستطيع التفكير بموتنا، دون أن نحس، وفي اللحظة نفسها بالمعجزة الغريبة، معجزة كوننا على قيد الحياة لم أنتبه إلا الآن، إلى أي مدى هي الحياة جميلة

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 on the ground looking up at you… What would you think? Never mind, it’s not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself? It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods. I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature. You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe? If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being.

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.

P.S. This book was written in a pre-COVID world. The 2020 of Minnie and Quinn’s world now exists only in some parallel universe. Whatever the year ahead might bring for us all, let’s keep reading. Books free us from isolation. Stories unite us. We’ve all had to play in one-player mode for a while—but we’re all still in this game together.

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.

But then you heard Sophie was coming to Hecate, and you decided to stay," Lara finished, and her lips twisted in the triumphant smile I'd seen on Mrs. Casnoff's face dozens of times. I stood there, frozen in place, as she turned back to me and said, "Mr. Callahan gave up a chance to travel the world with the Council so that he could be little more than a janitor on Graymalkin Island. For you.

Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?’ enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over. ‘One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,’ says Sugar. ‘It saves time and paper.’ Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, ‘If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?’ Sophie answers without hesitation. ‘I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand.

I’m somewhat disgusted at myself for thinking such dramatic, girlie thoughts. But I can’t help myself. He rocks my world. You know how parents always say things like, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?” Well, if Carter jumped off a cliff, I wouldn’t just jump off after him. I’d throw myself over the ledge and dive toward the earth below so I could catch up with him and hold his hand while we plummeted to our deaths. Yeah. I’m that much of a sicko.

Nevertheless we are free individuals, and this freedom condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do. Sartre emphasized that man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we "must" go to work, or we "must" live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live "authentically" or "truly".

I suppose it was the end of the world for her when her husband and her baby were killed. I suppose she didn't care what became of her and flung herself into the horrible degradation of drink and promiscuous copulation to get even with life that had treated her so cruelly. She'd lived in heaven and when she lost it she couldn't put up with the common earth of common men, but in despair plunged headlong into hell. I can imagine that if she couldn't drink the nectar of the gods any more she thought she might as well drink bathroom gin.' That's the sort of thing you say in novels. It's nonsense and you know it's nonsense. Sophie wallows in the gutter because she likes it. Other women have lost their husbands and children. It wasn't that that made her evil. Evil doesn't spring from good. The evil was there always. When that motor accident broke her defences it set her free to be herself. Don't waste your pity on her, she's now what at heart she always was.

let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?" "I probably would." "And why would that be?" "Because I would know how impossible it all is." "So... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are." "I guess that's right." "And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that 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, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences

Take the Cup, Sophia Collins,"she said, and the room was breathlessly silent. The Council chamber was not full, but the row Tessa sat at the end was:Gideon and Gabriel, Cecily and Henry, and her and Will, all leaning forward eagerly, waiting for Sophie to Ascend. At each end of the dais stood a Silent Brother, their heads bent, their parchment robes looking as if they had been carved out of marble. Charlotte lowered the Cup, and held it out to Sophie, who took it carefully. "Do you swear, Sophia Collins, to forsake the mundane world and follow the path of the Shadowhunter? Will you take into yourself the blood of the Angel Raziel and honor that blood? Do you swear to serve the Clave, to follow the Law as set forth by the Covernant, and to obey the word of the Council? Will you defend that which is human and mortal, knowing that for your service there will be no recompense and no thanks but honor?"I swear,"said Sophie, her voice very steady. "Can you be a shield for the weak, a light in the dark, a truth among falsehoods, a tower in the flood, an eye to see when all others are blind?" I can." "And when you are dead, will you give up your body to the Nephilim to be burned, that your ashes may be used to build the City of Bones?" "I will." "The drink,"said Charlotte. Tessa heard Gideon draw in his breath. This was the dangerous part of the ritual. This was the part that would kill the untrained and unworthy. Sophie bent her dark head and set the Cup to her lips. Tessa sat forward, her chest tight with aprehension. She felt Will's hand slide over hers, a warm, comforting weight. Sophie's throat moved as she swallowed. The circle that surrounded her and Charlotte flared up once with a cold, blue-white light, obscuring them both. When it faded, Tessa was left blinking stars from her eyes as the light dwindled. She blinked hastily, and saw Sophie hold up the Cup. there was a glow about the Cup she held as she handed it back to Charlotte, who smiled broadly. "You are Nehilim now,"she said. "I name you Sophia Shadowhunter, of the blood of Jonathan Shadowhunter, child of the Nehilim. Arise, Sophia.

Paul. Look at me. You need to understand this. The worst thing that could have happened to me already happened." He looks up. She swallows, knowing that these are the words that stall; that may simply refuse to emerge. "Four years ago David and I went to bed like it was any other night, brushing our teeth reading our books, chatting about a restaurant we were going to the next day...and when I woke up the next morning he was there beside me, cold. Blue. I didn't...I didn't feel him go. I didn't even get to say..." There is a short silence. "Can you imagine knowing you slept through the person you love most dying next to you ? Knowing that there might have been something you could have done to help him ? To save him ? Not knowing if he was looking at you, silently begging you to..." The words fail, her breath catches, a familiar tide threatens to wash over her He reaches out his hands slowly, enfolds hers within them until she can speak again. "I thought the world had actually ended. I thought nothing good could ever happen again. I thought any thing might happen if I wasn't vigilant. I didn't eat. I didn't go out. I didn't want to see anyone. But I survived, Paul. Much to my own surprise, I got through it. And life...well, life gradually became liveable again." She leans closer to him. "So this...the painting, the house...It hit me when I heard what happened to Sophie. It's just stuff. They could take all of it, frankly. the only thing that matters is people." She looks down at his hands, and her voice cracks. "All that really matters is who you love.