Julian Baggini quotes - page 3

Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue. (Julian Baggini)
Daily life is better when it involves interactions with real people who have a personal investment in their labour, like shopkeepers, than it is with someone 'just doing my job' or the infernal self-checkout machine. View quote
Julian Baggini
Yesterday's news feeds our fear that our neighbours are more likely than not to be bad eggs: benefit fraudsters, bogus asylum seekers, paedophiles or jihadist terrorists. View quote
Julian Baggini
People do care where their food, or other goods, comes from, not merely if the price is right. And that means no business can afford to ignore the impacts their buying practices have on producers and on the perceptions and choices of consumers. View quote
Julian Baggini
There is such a thing as fanaticism, it is always wrong, and if you disagree, you're wrong too. View quote
Julian Baggini
Science works because the phenomenon being described can be relied on to remain the same. Even in quantum physics, where phenomena are changed by observation, the way in which observation interferes is regular and falls within a limited range of possibilities. Human culture, however, has the nasty habit of never staying the same for very long. View quote
Julian Baggini
Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway. View quote
Julian Baggini
When you do the right thing, but not to any particular person, we instinctively feel that we have earned some sort of pay back. Since no-one will do that for us, we opt for self-service reciprocation. View quote
Julian Baggini
Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like. View quote
Julian Baggini
The modern believer is not suspicious enough, which is perhaps why, when they try to construct arguments in their defence, the convictions are left doing all the work and reason, debilitated by neglect, weakly fails to prop them up. View quote
Julian Baggini
The very act of questioning whether you exist proves you do, because you must be there for the doubt to be entertained in the first place. (Julian Baggini)
Trying to keep up with health advice can feel like surfing the Net for weather forecasts: what you find is always changing, often contradictory and rarely encouraging. View quote
Julian Baggini
Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed. View quote
Julian Baggini
Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt. View quote
Julian Baggini
If we find it hard to believe that winning millions might not be so lucky after all, we just don't have a good enough imagination. If I fantasise about winning the lottery, it doesn't take long before all sorts of worrisome potential consequences occur to me. View quote
Julian Baggini
Anger clearly has its proper place at work, which is neither wholly absent nor ever present. The manager who is an emotional blank is just as hard to work for as the volcanic boss, and both can do great harm by setting an unhelpful example for what kind of emotional expression is expected and accepted. View quote
Julian Baggini
People should not expect the state to protect them from fraudsters. If we do, we get into the habit of neglecting our own powers of intellectual discernment. View quote
Julian Baggini
Nature deals the cards without thought or care, and there is no point in blaming the dealer. All we can do is make the best of the hands we have been dealt. View quote
Julian Baggini
We can't control whether we are rewarded for our endeavours, with cash or recognition. It is not up to us how much cash or time we get on Earth, but it is down to us how we spend it. View quote
Julian Baggini
It is true that legality is not morality, and sticking to the law is necessary for good citizenship, but it is not sufficient. View quote
Julian Baggini
Trade has played a vital role in the social evolution of humankind. It allowed people to specialise, which raises both skill levels and efficiency. It brought people from different lands together, co-operating rather than competing over resources. (Julian Baggini)
The truly humble feel the ground beneath their feet every day and do not only become aware of it when held aloft or pushed down to their knees. View quote
Julian Baggini
I don't believe in God because certain reasons and arguments weigh more heavily in my mind than others, not because I have willfully decided to reject my creator, as many religious people seem to think. I could no more simply decide to believe in God than I could decide to like beetroot, just like that. View quote
Julian Baggini
One reason why it has become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking. View quote
Julian Baggini
Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice. View quote
Julian Baggini