Julian Baggini > Quotes

“Real life is about accepting ups and downs, the good and the bad, the possibility of failure as well as the ambition to succeed. Atheism speaks to the truth about our human nature because it recognizes all this and does not seek to shield us from the truth by myth and superstition”
― Julian Baggini

“Morality is more than possible without God, it is entirely independent of him.”
― Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

“Philosophy without criticism is like hunting deer without a shotgun, so, if you want people to like you, avoid robust philosophical debate.”
― Julian Baggini, The Duck That Won the Lottery: and 99 Other Bad Arguments

“Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.”
― Julian Baggini, The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods

“Is it how we feel or how we think that is more important in determining whether we are morally good human beings?”
― Julian Baggini, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher

“This line of reasoning would seem to lead to the absurd conclusion that the world is filled with noises no one hears, colours no one sees, flavours no one tastes, textures no one feels, as well as a host of other sense experience we cannot even imagine. For there is no end in which creatures might possibly perceive the world.”
― Julian Baggini

“The point of seeing both sides isn’t to hover between them but to be able to come down on the right side with the right degree of conviction.”
― Julian Baggini

“Our desire to preserve is a form of denial about our own mortality. The fact that art can indure longer than people has lead some to seek a form of proxy-immortality through it. If we accept that art is mortal too, and that nothing is truly permanent, maybe we can see more clearly where the value of art and life is to be fount - in experiencing them.”
― Julian Baggini, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher

“You know what a word means when you know how to use it, not what its definition is. That is why we can understand and use all sorts of words that we struggle to define clearly if we are put on the spot and asked to do so.”
― Julian Baggini, Philosophy: All That Matters

“Rhetoric is simply the use of language to persuade, and it can be used to persuade us of falsehoods as well as truths.”
― Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

“Working out whether or not the claims you make in your premises are true, while important, is simply not enough to ensure that you draw true conclusions. People make this mistake all the time. They forget that you can begin with a set of entirely true beliefs but reason so poorly as to end up with entirely false conclusions. The problem is that starting with truth doesn’t guarantee ending up with it.”
― Julian Baggini, The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods

“No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.’ Seneca (c. 4 BCE to 65 AD)”
― Julian Baggini, Philosophy: All That Matters

“A bird gives a cry–the mountains quiet all the more.’ 49 (This is also perhaps the real meaning behind Hakuin Ekaku’s famous eighteenth-century-BCE koan ‘What is the Sound of the Single Hand?’: it is an invitation to attend to the silence, the emptiness.”
― Julian Baggini, How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy

“Judas betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. No one in the Gospel ever judges of punishes him for this. Even Jesus, who is shown to know Judas will betray him, simply tells him "That thou doest, do quickly". But ultimately Judas sees he has done wrong and condemns himself. He goes to the chief priests and elders to return the silver, saying "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood", then hangs himself. The price of 'sin' is not that you will be sent to hell by a divine judge or that karmic forces will ensure you're paid back. The price of being bad is that you have to live with being the person who did wrong.”
― Julian Baggini, The Godless Gospel

“What the rise of religions did was to give a name to a set of beliefs (atheism) that had always existed but which was considered so unexceptional that it required no special label.”
― Julian Baggini, A Very British Populism

“the meaning of life is not some kind of answer, which, once learned, is forever possessed. For life to stay meaningful it must continue to contain things of value, and that is an ongoing work in progress. Meaning can vanish: what we once found gave us a reason to exist we can lose or tire of.”
― Julian Baggini, Philosophy: All That Matters

“If we live with a good heart, good speech, and good action life will be good.”
― Julian Baggini

“عندما نقول "فعلنا ما بدا لنا الأفضل في ذلك الوقت" هل حاولنا ما في وسعنا لمعرفة الأفضل في الحقيقة؟
ألن نكون أكثر صدقاً إذا وقفنا وقلنا أننا أحياناً فعلنا الشئ الخطأ وكان يمكننا وينبغي علينا أن نفعل الأفضل؟”
― Julian Baggini, The Duck That Won the Lottery: and 99 Other Bad Arguments

“Even if God were inclined to dole out post-mortem punishment it is more likely to be for the wicked than for the sceptical.”
― Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

“متي يكون مقبولاً استعمال تعبير مفرد لشئ نعرف في الواقع أنه يحتوي علي كثير من المتغيرات؟
متي -إذا حدث علي الإطلاق- يكون من العدل ان نضع أحكاماً عريضة عن المسيحية والإسلام والإرهاب وعمل الخير والسياسيين وتليفزيون الواقع والرسامين والتأثيريين والتجار المصرفيين والقيم البريطانية وأهل نيويورك؟
عندما تضع مثل هذه الأحكام،هل أنت عادل أم أنك تبسط الأمور بشدة؟”
― Julian Baggini, The Duck That Won the Lottery: and 99 Other Bad Arguments

“It is intuitively plausible that if something has endured for centuries, there must be something in it. But on that logic, there must be something in slavery and the inequality of women.”
― Julian Baggini, The Duck That Won the Lottery: and 99 Other Bad Arguments

“We all have to make some basic assumptions that we cannot afford to doubt. Belief in our very sanity is in some sense a leap of faith.”
― Julian Baggini

“Imagination without reason is mere fancy, but reason without imagination is sterile.”
― Julian Baggini, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher

“This David Hume is an excellent man; he is naturally placid; he listens attentively, he sometimes speaks with wit, although he speaks little; but he is clumsy, he has neither warmth, nor grace, nor charm of humour, nor anything that properly appertains to the chirping of those charming little mechanisms known as pretty women.”23”
― Julian Baggini, The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well

“we use reason more than we are governed by it.”
― Julian Baggini, The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well

“«Nunca será posible llegar solo mediante la razón pura a alguna verdad absoluta».5”
― Julian Baggini, Breve historia de la verdad

“If refined sense and exalted sense be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind: As gold, though less serviceable than iron, acquires, from its scarcity, a value, which is much superior.”
― Julian Baggini, The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well

“What matters is surely that life has a purpose for us, here and now. Whether this purpose was dreamed up by a creator or is assigned or invented by ourselves is not of paramount importance. If we can give life purpose and meaning, there is no obvious reason why this should be considered an inferior kind of meaning to that which could have been given by a creator.”
― Julian Baggini, What's It All About?: Philosophy & the Meaning of Life

“when people strongly disagree, try to find what they haven’t noticed unites them,”
― Julian Baggini, The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well

“If we pretend or imagine that life's purpose lies outside living itself, we will be searching the stars for what is underneath our feet all the time.”
― Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction