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Philosophy, in spite of all its tiresome features, is not a luxury but a necessity, because we always have to use it when things get difficult.

— Mary Midgley The Owl of Minerva: A Memoir (2005)

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Philosophy

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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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

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.