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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.

Julian Baggini

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Julian Baggini
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 9
Author
Philosopher
Writer
Two
Sounds
Different
Tests
Protests
Things
Requires
Complaint
Fail
Complaints
Failing
Constructive
Simple
Protest
Sound
Complaining
Often
Test

More quotes by Julian Baggini

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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.
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Any celebration meal to which guests are invited, be they family or friends, should be an occasion for generous hospitality.
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If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.
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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.
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I am only me for practical purposes.
Julian Baggini
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We do wrong willfully when we fail to think hard about whether what we're doing is right.
Julian Baggini
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I don't think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive.
Julian Baggini
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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.
Julian Baggini
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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.
Julian Baggini
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When you try to translate any kind of real-life problem into a neat logical form, you're almost always simplifying it. We need a kind of blend - we need to use not just tools of logic, which are important and valuable - I'm not denying that, but also tools of judgement, and of inductive and abductive reasoning which can also inform.
Julian Baggini
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No genuine choice is ever simply a matter of the arbitrary exercise of will. Take your choice of lunch today. You can't decide to want anything, but what you want will at least in part be a result of a series of other choices and judgments you've made in your life to date.
Julian Baggini
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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.
Julian Baggini
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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.
Julian Baggini
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In my experience, those who make the biggest fuss about not spending much at Christmas are generally the ones who buy what they want and eat where they want 12 months a year.
Julian Baggini
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I don't feel proprietorial about the problems of philosophy. History has taught us that many philosophical issues can grow up, leave home and live elsewhere.
Julian Baggini
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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.
Julian Baggini
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It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim never say never is one of the most important in ethics.
Julian Baggini
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The capacity to make free choices is not something we either have entirely or not at all. Rather, choices become freer the more they are the result of our own capacity to reflect on and assess facts and arguments.
Julian Baggini
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There are many things you shouldn't measure. Don't, for example, try to measure how much you love your wife!
Julian Baggini
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Rules matter, and to be rules they need to be universal in form: always do this, never do that. But it is foolish to rule out in advance the possibility that an occasion might arise when normal rules just don't apply. Rules are not there to be broken, but sometimes break them we must.
Julian Baggini