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"We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves -- that is, the most mature and reasonable parts of us (seldom present in the midst of our crises and obsessions) -- who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us. An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments."
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Exlpore more Morality quotes
"It is better to be slave to righteousness of God than sin of satan."
"In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange."
"Good and evil are both within us. And when our primitive ancestors humanized these natural qualities of the mind, they got two completely opposite supernatural characters. One was the merciful lord almighty and the other was the wicked devil."
"Hand holding sword is always an ugly hand!"
"The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive."
Explore more quotes by Alain de Botton
"The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil."
"What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through the sale of some astonishingly small and only distantly meaningful things, a civilisation torn and unable sensibly to adjudicate between the worthwhile ends to which money might be put and the often morally trivial and destructive mechanisms of its generation."
"The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury."
"Curiosity takes ignorance seriously, and is confident enough to admit when it does not know. It is aware of not knowing, and it sets out to do something about it."
"Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope."
"To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone. This isn't necessarily our fault as individuals. Society as a whole appears determined to render the single state as nettlesome and depressing as possible: once the freewheeling days of school and university are over, company and warmth become dispiritingly hard to find; social life starts to revolve oppressively around couples; there's no one left to call or hang out with. It's hardly surprising, then, if when we find someone halfway decent, we might cling."
"Insomnia is his mind's revenge for all the tricky thoughts he has carefully avoided during the daylight hours."
"At the heart of the pain created by sexual rejection is our habit of interpreting it as a moral judgement, when it might more accurately be categorized as a mere accident."
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