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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 success
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 people
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 thought
I maintain the importance of an absolute prohibition against torture, while acknowledging that even absolute prohibitions can sometimes be broken. If that is a contradiction, it is a contradiction that ethics has to embrace, or else it becomes like glass: hard, clear, but fatally inflexible.
— Julian Baggini time
The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental.
— Julian Baggini men
It's not leftovers that are wasteful, but those who either don't know what to do with them or can't be bothered.
— Julian Baggini wit
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 people
The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.
— Julian Baggini mind
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 art
Any celebration meal to which guests are invited, be they family or friends, should be an occasion for generous hospitality.
— Julian Baggini family
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 life
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 people
Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.
— Julian Baggini light
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 you
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.
— Julian Baggini man
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 art
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 words
Perhaps the biggest myth about cynicism is that it deepens with age. I think what really happens is that experience painfully rips away layers of scales from our eyes, and so we do indeed become more cynical about many of the things we naively accepted when younger.
— Julian Baggini pain
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.
— Julian Baggini love
'That which does not kill me makes me stronger' is not a law of the universe. What it can be, if we so choose, is a resolution.
— Julian Baggini universe
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 ethics
If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two.
— Julian Baggini happy
Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed.
— Julian Baggini war
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 war
The very act of questioning whether you exist proves you do, because you must be there for the doubt to be entertained in the first place.
— Julian Baggini doubt
The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and its 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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