151 Quotes by Julian Baggini

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

We do wrong willfully when we fail to think hard about whether what we’re doing is right.

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.

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.

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.