To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.
A.C. GRAYLINGTo read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.
A.C. GRAYLINGI am putting together a secular bible. My Genesis is when the apple falls on Newton’s head.
A.C. GRAYLINGMisuse 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. GRAYLINGNothing is truly unnatural, because everything that exists, including human intelligence, is a product of nature. If human intelligence can devise ways for the genes from two men to result in a child, their doing so is an entirely natural event.
A.C. GRAYLINGInculcating the various competing – competing, note – falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.
A.C. GRAYLINGI do not believe that there are any such things as gods and goddesses, for exactly the same reasons as I do not believe there are fairies, goblins or sprites, and these reasons should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten.
A.C. GRAYLINGIt 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. GRAYLINGTry lighting your house by prayer instead of electricity and see which one works.
A.C. GRAYLINGA human lifespan is less than a thousand months long. You need to make some time to think how to live it.
A.C. GRAYLINGThe 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…mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.
A.C. GRAYLINGI despise people who depend on these things [heroin and cocaine]. If you really want a mind-altering experience, look at a tree.
A.C. GRAYLINGJust 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. GRAYLINGScience is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends.
A.C. GRAYLINGIf there is anything worth fearing in the world, it is living in such a way that gives one cause for regret in the end.
A.C. GRAYLINGTo believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.
A.C. GRAYLING