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Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini Quotes

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Julian Baggini is a British author and philosopher born in 1968. He is known for his popularization and in-depth exploration of philosophy, with a focus on making philosophy more accessible to the general public.

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All Ifs People Thinking Philosophy Reason Should Believe Kind World Trying

Famous Julian Baggini Quotes

“Seek first what is true and of value, and then whatever happiness follows will be of the appropriate quantity and, more importantly, quality.”

Firsts Values Quality Appropriate Quantity

Author:Julian Baggini

“Since Plato, we have been considering the nature of knowledge, the meaning of meaning and the status of the physical world.”

World Has Beens Considering Plato

Author:Julian Baggini

“Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt.”

Ifs Mean Different Results Struggle Stress Debt

Author: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.”

Firsts Doubt Prove Questioning

Author:Julian Baggini

“Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.”

Different Habit Assumption Lazy Spotlight Hue

Author:Julian Baggini

“The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.”

Mind Facts Term Ability Virtue Clear Healthy Mark Mere Uncertainty Mature Precise Ambiguity Healthy Mind Obfuscation

Author:Julian Baggini

“The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it's possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success.”

Believe Humans Real Reality Difficult Interest Chance Progress Achieve Realistic Underestimate Optimist Programmes Confronting Anything Is Possible Real Change Vested Interests

Author:Julian Baggini

“True humility is expressed in deeds, not words. The humble are those who truly walk the same ground as everyone else - not necessarily with grovelling, hunched backs, but certainly not lording it over others, either.”

Walks Humility Deeds Humble True Humility Deeds Not Words

Author:Julian Baggini

“True respect means taking other people's beliefs seriously and assuming they are adult and intelligent enough to be able to cope with it if you tell them, clearly and civility, why you think they are totally, utterly and disastrously wrong.”

People Ifs Thinking Mean Enough Able Belief Adults Intelligent Assuming Civility

Author:Julian Baggini

“Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood.”

Giving Bigs Might Events Arms Taste Shots Symbols Transient Robust Morale Spectacles Sporting Events

Author:Julian Baggini

“Constructive complaint requires only two things: that what you are complaining about should be different, and that it can be different. It sounds simple, but too often our protests fail this test.”

Should Two Different Sound Simple Failing Tests Complaining Two Things Protest Complaints Constructive

Author:Julian Baggini

“Cooking can be rewarding when it is a choice and no longer the onerous duty of the housewife, and when a dishwasher can lighten the load at the other end of the process.”

Ends Choices Process Duty Cooking Load Housewife Dishwashers

Author: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.”

People Real Self Jobs Life Is Machines Investment Labour Daily Life Interaction Shopkeepers Checkouts

Author:Julian Baggini

“Dover's cliffs call to mind the Roman invasion; the Battle of Britain; our proximity to, yet difference from, mainland Europe; and international trade and exploration, both fair and exploitative.”

Mind Differences Battle Europe Fairs Trade International Britain Exploration Cliffs Invasion Proximity International Trade Dover Battle Of Britain

Author:Julian Baggini

“From time to time, it is worth wandering around the fuzzy border regions of what you do, if only to remind yourself that no human activity is an island.”

Ifs Humans Activity Wander Borders Islands Regions Human Activity Fuzzy Wandering Around

Author:Julian Baggini

“Heathens are unredeemed outcasts from heaven who roam the planet without hope of surviving the deaths of their bodies. They may have values but they are not secured by any divine source. Yet we embrace this because we think it represents the truth.”

Thinking May Body Values Heaven Divine Planets Source Embrace Surviving Outcast Secured Without Hope Heathen

Author:Julian Baggini

“I maintain the importance of an absolute prohibition against torture, while acknowledging that even absolute prohibitions can sometimes be broken. If that is a contradiction, it is a contradiction that ethics has to embrace, or else it becomes like glass: hard, clear, but fatally inflexible.”

Ifs Sometimes Hard Clear Broken Ethics Importance Absolutes Embrace Glasses Torture Contradiction Prohibition

Author:Julian Baggini

“I never thought I was cut out for a life of crime. I even felt guilty when I accidentally stole a Subbuteo catalogue, thinking it was free. But everyone has an inner rebel, and mine has finally found a natural outlet. My crime of choice is that, with a heart as cold as ice and no care for what society thinks, I steal wireless computer network time.”

Thinking Heart Care Choices Found Felt Natural Cutting Crime Mines Cold Computer Stealing Guilty Ice Rebel Outlets Wireless Catalogues

Author:Julian Baggini

“If I hammer my own thumb while doing some DIY, it's not nice, but it's not the end of the world. To care obsessively about similar levels of discomfort in animals seems to be a case of mistaken moral priorities.”

Ifs World Ends Seems Care My Own Animal Levels Moral Cases Nice Priorities Mistaken End Of The World Hammers Discomfort Thumbs Diy

Author:Julian Baggini

“If there is an art of living, it is not something that can be taught timelessly. We have lessons to learn from Aristotle et al, for sure, but not if we simply uproot them from their epoch and stamp them into 21st-century soil.”

Ifs Art Century Taught Lessons Soil Als 21st Century Stamps Epoch Art Of Living

Author: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.”

Ifs Believe Long Hard Enough Might Winning Imagination Millions Lucky Consequence Good Enough Lottery So Lucky Hard To Believe Winning The Lottery

Author:Julian Baggini

“Looking out over the port of Dover, with the endless steam of boats coming in and out, every British citizen is reminded that belonging here has never been about blood or genes. It's simply about being at home on this discrete island and being aware of the privileges and responsibilities that brings.”

Home Responsibility Blood Citizens Privilege British Endless Boat Islands Belonging Genes Steam Port Discrete Dover Privilege And Responsibility

Author:Julian Baggini

“Most people believe, more or less, that the value of a human life is the same, irrespective of where on the planet it happens to find itself. But, of course, not every life has the same value for us.”

People Believe Humans Happens Life Is Values Courses Planets Human Life

Author:Julian Baggini

“No matter how convinced we are that someone is nasty, evil or just plain criminal, if they have not been convicted of any crime and support views that are upheld and defended by many law-abiding citizens, the only way to tackle them is through democratic debate.”

Ifs Way Matter Law Evil Views Support Crime Citizens Democratic Convinced Criminals Debate Nasty Abiding Law Abiding Citizen

Author:Julian Baggini

“On social networking sites, we may expose ourselves, but we choose to do so. We are in control and, often wrongly, we do not feel we are giving away tradable data.”

Giving Feels May Social Data Site Networking Social Networking Social Networking Sites Networking Sites

Author: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.”

Thinking Has Beens Self Reason Helping Sides Emotion Moral Self Help Negative Harder Reason Why Replaced Vocabulary Good And Bad Beneficial Negative Thinking Lexicon

Author: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.”

People Ifs Mean Care Choices Practice Perception Impact Producers Consumers Buying Goods

Author:Julian Baggini

“Philosophy has to be enquiring; it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.”

Reason Philosophy Acceptance Authority Argument Method Blind Blind Acceptance

Author:Julian Baggini

“Philosophy is at its most engaged when it is impure. What is being recovered from the Ancient Greek model is not some lost idea of philosophy's pure essence, but the idea that philosophy is mixed up with everything else.”

Ideas Philosophy Lost Pure Models Essence Ancient Greek Engaged Ancient Greek

Author: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.”

Way Humans Long Fall Culture Possibility Changed Habit Physics Observation Range Staying Phenomenon Quantum Interfere Nasty Quantum Physics

Author:Julian Baggini

“The border between the natural and the supernatural, religion and philosophy, may not always be clear. But there are lines and we should know and accept which side of it we are on.”

Knows Should May Philosophy Sides Natural Lines Accepting Clear Borders

Author:Julian Baggini

“The idea that the mind can extend even beyond the body is an intriguing one, and is bound to become more pressing as we increasingly develop technologies that augment our natural abilities.”

Mind Ideas Body Natural Ability Technology Bounds Intriguing Natural Ability

Author:Julian Baggini

“The idea that there is a sharp boundary between our true, inner selves and the outside world is pervasive, but highly questionable. The boundaries of the self might well be more porous than we ordinarily think.”

Thinking World Wells Ideas Self Might Boundaries Inner Self Outside World Questionable

Author: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.”

Trying Reason Enough Left Failing Modern Argument Conviction Believer Neglect Constructs Suspicious Defence Props

Author:Julian Baggini

“The only good reason to embrace a philosophical position is that you are convinced it is true or at least makes sense of the world better than the alternatives.”

World Reason Position Philosophical Embrace Convinced Alternatives Make Sense

Author:Julian Baggini

“The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion.”

Giving Mind Reason Sound Teaching Buddhism Elements Philosophical Core Cease Contemporary Interpretation Acceptable Secular Supernatural Elements

Author:Julian Baggini

“This is the deal: we are happy to single out people as superior just as long as they don't accept the description themselves. We want heroes and idols but we also want egalitarianism and that requires proclamations of humility from our Gods.”

People Want Long Deals Accepting Humility Hero Superiors Description Idols Proclamation Egalitarianism

Author:Julian Baggini

“To become a stoic is to endorse the truthfulness of its world view and accept its prescription for how you ought to live, not just to like how it makes you feel.”

World Feels Views Accepting Ought Prescriptions Truthfulness World View Stoic

Author:Julian Baggini

“Too often, complaint is not about principled objection on moral grounds, but opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. To rectify this, we need to work on mastering the art of complaint.”

Needs Art Self Interest Moral Complaints Self Interest Objections Principled Rectify

Author: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.”

People Different Together Social Levels Roles Land Evolution Skills Resources Raises Trade Humankind Efficiency Competing

Author: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.”

Feels Trying Advice Weather Surfing Contradictory Forecasts Surfing The Web

Author:Julian Baggini

“Waiting is so unusual that many of us can't stand in a queue for 30 seconds without getting out our phones to check for messages or to Google something.”

Waiting Messages Phones Checks Seconds Unusual Google Queues

Author: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.”

Earth Recognition Cash Endeavour

Author: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.”

Benefits News Yesterday Terrorist Eggs Seekers Neighbour Asylums Asylum Seekers

Author:Julian Baggini

“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”

Humans Wells Doe Real Life Is Speak Accepting Atheism Human Nature Possibility Succeed Ambition Myth Real Life Superstitions Shields Ups & Downs

Book:Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

Source: Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

“Morality is more than possible without God, it is entirely independent of him.”

Morality Independent Without God

Book:Atheism

Source: Atheism

“I am only me for practical purposes.”

Purpose Practicals

Author:Julian Baggini

“Truth and Truthfulness is an ambitious work, and its journeys into history give it a breadth unusual in these days of increased academic specialization. . . . William's book combines real history and fictional constructs to tell a revealing story that makes us reconsider the meaning of familiar concepts.”

Giving Book Real Stories Journey Concepts Familiar These Days Unusual Academic Ambitious Constructs Revealing Truthfulness Breadth Specialization

Author:Julian Baggini

“Even if we can agree that some things are natural and some are not, what follows from this? The answer is: nothing. There is no factual reason to suppose that what is natural is good (or at least better) and what is unnatural is bad (or at least worse).”

Ifs Reason Natural Answers Agree Unnatural Factual

Author:Julian Baggini

“Instead of showing strangers kindness and giving them the benefit of the doubt, we increasingly show them only fear, and that is bad for us and them.”

Giving Shows Kindness Doubt Benefits Stranger Benefit Of The Doubt

Author:Julian Baggini

About the Author

Born: 1968
Known for: Author
Quotes: 134

Related Topics

Ifs People Thinking Philosophy Reason Should Believe Kind World Trying

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Atheism: A Very Short IntroductionRelated source material

AtheismRelated source material

The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and MethodsRelated source material

The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair PhilosopherRelated source material

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