A.C. Grayling Professions : Philosopher Born : April 3, 1949 Browse All Authors Top 38 quotes by A.C. Grayling There is a beautiful and life-enhancing alternative outlook that offers insight, consolation, inspiration and meaning, which has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the best, most generous, most sympathetic understanding of human reality. A.C. Grayling inspiration beautiful reality It takes a certain ingenuous faith - but I have it - to believe that people who read and reflect more likely than not come to judge things with liberality and truth. A.C. Grayling reflection believe people Inculcating the various competing - competing, note - falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal. A.C. Grayling abuse children religion Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night; plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it. A.C. Grayling technology religious night Just as modern motorways have no room for ox-carts or wandering pedestrians, so modern society has little place for lives and ways that are too eccentric. A.C. Grayling eccentric littles way Sensible Catholics have for generations been ignoring the views on contraception held by reactionary old men in the Vatican, but alas, since it is the business of all religious doctrines to keep their votaries in a state of intellectual infancy (how else do they keep absurdities seeming credible?), insufficient numbers of Catholics have been able to be sensible. A.C. Grayling religious views men Perhaps worse still is what liberal societies might do to themselves in the face of this new and different threat [of terrorism]. They begin, by small but dangerous increments, to cease to be as liberal as they once were. They begin to restrict their own hard-won rights and freedoms as a protection against the crminial minority who attempt (and as we thus see, by forcing liberty to commit suidcide, succed in doing) to terrorise society. A.C. Grayling liberty different rights Future generations may or may not judge Wittgenstein to be one of the great philosophers. Even if they do not, however, he is sure always to count as one of the great personalities of philosophy. From our perspective it is easy to mistake one for the other; which he is time will tell. A.C. Grayling perspective mistake philosophy I am putting together a secular bible. My Genesis is when the apple falls on Newton's head. A.C. Grayling writing science fall Behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? A.C. Grayling party children hands The media no longer hesitate to whip up lurid anxieties in order to increase sales, in the process undermining social confidence and multiplying fears. A.C. Grayling anxiety media order ...mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life. A.C. Grayling mastery emotion fundamentals The wise say that our failure is to form habits: for habit is the mark of a stereotyped world. A.C. Grayling habit wise world It doesn't have to be the Grand Canyon, it could be a city street, it could be the face of another human being - Everything is full of wonder. A.C. Grayling atheist cities faces I believe that decisions about the timing and manner of death belong to the individual as a human right. I believe it is wrong to withhold medical methods of terminating life painlessly and swiftly when an individual has a rational and clear-minded sustained wish to end his or her life. A.C. Grayling decision wish believe When I was 14 a chaplain at school gave me a reading list. I read everything and I went back to him with a question: how can you really believe in this stuff? A.C. Grayling reading believe school Christian churches and Muslim groups have no more right to have their say than women's institutes or trades unions. The government has actively encouraged faith-based education, and therefore given a megaphone to religious voices and fundamentalists. A.C. Grayling voice religious christian Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends. A.C. Grayling maturity doubt science Similar Authors F. H. Bradley philosopher Irving Copi philosopher Ivan Ilyin philosopher Ivan Illich philosopher Bion of Borysthenes philosopher Bonaventure philosopher All Authors
