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" 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. "

Julian Baggini

Fear

Bad

Yesterday

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" Happiness is not the same as life satisfaction, while neither are identical to what we might call flourishing. "

" Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like. "

" 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. "

" Any celebration meal to which guests are invited, be they family or friends, should be an occasion for generous hospitality. "

" Prayer provides an opportunity to remind oneself of how one should be living, our responsibilities to others, our own failings, and our relative good fortune, should we have it. This is, I think, a pretty worthwhile practice and it is not something you can only do if you believe you are talking to an unseen creator. "

" There are many things you shouldn't measure. Don't, for example, try to measure how much you love your wife! "

" 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. "

" 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

Believe

God

" Society needs both justice and compassion, a head and a heart, if it is to be civilised. "

" 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

Live

Home

" 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. "

" 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. "

" It is often said that having gone through any kind of suffering tends to makes you appreciate life more and live more in the present. I'm not sure how universal or long-lasting these effects really are. "

" 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

Philosophy

Know

" Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice. "

" 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. "

" 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

Opportunity

People

" The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental. "

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

" 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. "

" Atheists should point out that life without God can be meaningful, moral and happy. "

" 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. "

" There is such a thing as fanaticism, it is always wrong, and if you disagree, you're wrong too. "

" People should not expect the state to protect them from fraudsters. If we do, we get into the habit of neglecting our own powers of intellectual discernment. "

" 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. "

" It is true that legality is not morality, and sticking to the law is necessary for good citizenship, but it is not sufficient. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed. "

" Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be. "

Julian Baggini

Seeing

Animals