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Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.

— Mary Midgley The Myths We Live By (2003)

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More quotes by Mary Midgley

The notion that we "have a nature" far from threatening the concept of freedom, is absolutely essential to it.

The symbolism of meat-eating is never neutral. To himself, the meat-eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death.

Animals and Why They Matter (1983)

All moral doctrine, all practical suggestions about how we ought to live, depend on some belief about what human nature is like.

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979)

Let us start by considering why the attempt to glorify science on its own cannot work.

Are You an Illusion (2014)

But if it only means "likely to have many descendants," then there is no reason for treating it as an advantage at all.

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mary Midgley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.