Julian Baggini

I am only me for practical purposes.

— Julian Baggini

Indeed, without emotion it seems unlikely we can even have morality.

— Julian Baggini

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

— Julian Baggini

As a teenager, I increasingly had questions about religion to which I found no good answers.

— Julian Baggini

“Philosophy without criticism is like hunting deer without a shotgun, so, if you want people to like you, avoid robust philosophical debate.”

— Julian Baggini

The truly humble feel the ground beneath their feet every day and do not only become aware of it when held aloft…

— Julian Baggini

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

— 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

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

— 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

Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain…

— Julian Baggini

Even if we can agree that some things are natural and some are not, what follows from this? The answer is: nothing.…

— Julian Baggini

When you try to cool down hot emotions, what tends to happen is that you end up either repressing them or losing…

— Julian Baggini

This is the deal: we are happy to single out people as superior just as long as they don't accept the description…

— Julian Baggini

The only good reason to embrace a philosophical position is that you are convinced it is true or at least makes sense…

— Julian Baggini

Trying to keep up with health advice can feel like surfing the Net for weather forecasts: what you find is always changing,…

— Julian Baggini

Nature deals the cards without thought or care, and there is no point in blaming the dealer. All we can do is…

— Julian Baggini

When you do the right thing, but not to any particular person, we instinctively feel that we have earned some sort of…

— Julian Baggini

Prayer provides an opportunity to remind oneself of how one should be living, our responsibilities to others, our own failings, and our…

— Julian Baggini

People seem very arrogant when they say 'I'm right and you're wrong', but in practice we all believe we're right. We have…

— 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…

— Julian Baggini

I'm not one of these people who is sour about academia. I'm very lucky not to be in academia, but I am…

— Julian Baggini

Anger clearly has its proper place at work, which is neither wholly absent nor ever present. The manager who is an emotional…

— Julian Baggini

I am very Aristotelian in approach - not in detail - so I always find I'm saying things that get people frustrated…

— Julian Baggini

Many people are never happier than when they get the opportunity to complain, while others are deeply unhappy with how things are…

— Julian Baggini

“2.1 Abduction No, we’re not talking about kidnapping but, rather, an important dimension of scientific and ordinary as well as philosophical rationality.…

— Julian Baggini

There have been a number of philosophers who have reveled in the dismantling of truth. I think they did so with good…

— Julian Baggini

Once Steve Fuller said that there is this idea that your responsibility as an intellectual is just to speak the truth as…

— Julian Baggini

If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which…

— Julian Baggini

Life is full of what-ifs, many of which could easily have been realities, had just a few things been different.

— Julian Baggini

'That which does not kill me makes me stronger' is not a law of the universe. What it can be, if we…

— Julian Baggini

You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.

— Julian Baggini

If philosophy is to be a valuable part of life, we have to appreciate it for its own sake, and not just…

— Julian Baggini

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

— Julian Baggini

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

— Julian Baggini

Seek first what is true and of value, and then whatever happiness follows will be of the appropriate quantity and, more importantly,…

— Julian Baggini

Accepting that the world is full of uncertainty and ambiguity does not and should not stop people from being pretty sure about…

— Julian Baggini

Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.

— Julian Baggini

Love is indeed, at root, the product of the firings of neurons and release of hormones.

— Julian Baggini

Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.

— Julian Baggini