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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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Julian Baggini
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 9
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Philosopher
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More quotes by 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become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking.
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.
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.
Julian Baggini
If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.
Julian Baggini
Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt.
Julian Baggini
No one has ever understood anything better by assuming that there is no reason for why it is the way it is.
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.
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.
Julian Baggini
Economics is uncertain because its fundamental subject matter is not money but human action. That's why economics is not the dismal science, it's no science at all.
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.
Julian Baggini
Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.
Julian Baggini
Indeed, without emotion it seems unlikely we can even have morality.
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.
Julian Baggini
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
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.
Julian Baggini
No one who has understood even a fraction of what science has told us about the universe can fail to be in awe of both the cosmos and of science.
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.
Julian Baggini
Many people are never happier than when they get the opportunity to complain, while others are deeply unhappy with how things are but just accept the fact. Complaint occurs when we refuse to accept that things are wrong and we do something about it, even if that something is simply articulating our unease.
Julian Baggini
The supposed revelations of God to humanity through Christ, or the word of God to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel, had the power they did because they indicated new truths, new directions for followers.
Julian Baggini
Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.
Julian Baggini
