Then you have a big problem, because a human is a thinking animal. If you don't think, you're not really a human.

...long before the child learns to talk properly-and long before it learns to think philosophically-the world will have become a habit. A pity, if you ask me.

There are five billion people living on this planet. But you fall in love with one particular person, and you won't swap her for any other.

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.

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.

What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig.

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.