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" 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. "
Julian Baggini
Best
Hands
Thought
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" Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed. "
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" You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe. "
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" Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue. "
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" There is such a thing as fanaticism, it is always wrong, and if you disagree, you're wrong too. "
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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. "
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" 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. "
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" Traditional arguments for the existence of God and contemporary attempts to use fine-tuning and cosmology to back up the case for his existence always strike me as kinds of games, since hardly anyone believes on the basis of these arguments at all. "
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. "
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" 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. "
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" Wellbeing is a notion that entails our values about the good life, and questions of values are not ultimately scientific questions. "
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" Love is indeed, at root, the product of the firings of neurons and release of hormones. "
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" Justice can only be dispensed when you have all the facts in front of you. "
Julian Baggini
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Only
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" Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice. "
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" If you believe you are right, then you should believe that you can make the case that you're right. This requires you to deal with serious objections properly. "
Julian Baggini
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You
" 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. "
Julian Baggini
Truth
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" 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. "
Julian Baggini
Respect
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Think
" 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. "
Julian Baggini
Accept
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" Happiness is not the same as life satisfaction, while neither are identical to what we might call flourishing. "
Julian Baggini
Happiness
Satisfaction
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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
Two
Be Different
Simple
" Accepting that the world is full of uncertainty and ambiguity does not and should not stop people from being pretty sure about a lot of things. "
Julian Baggini
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Uncertainty
World
" You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow. "
Julian Baggini
Silence
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" Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that 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
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" 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. "
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Accept
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" 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. "
Julian Baggini
Back
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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
Success
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" Seek first what is true and of value, and then whatever happiness follows will be of the appropriate quantity and, more importantly, quality. "
Julian Baggini
True
Will
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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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! "
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Example