When some portion of the biosphere is rather unpopular with the human race-a crocodile, a dandelion, a stony valley, a snowstorm, an odd-shaped flint…

- Mary Midgley

It is this claim to a monopoly of meaning, rather than any special scientific doctrine, that makes science and religion look like competitors today. …

- Mary Midgley

Morally as well as physically, there is only one world, and we all have to live in it

- Mary Midgley

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 alread…

- Mary Midgley

None of us can study anything properly unless we do it with our whole being.

- Mary Midgley

It is extremely urgent to try and adapt our thoughts realistically to a world which has no fixed general direction either upward or downward, but is…

- Mary Midgley

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. Th…

- Mary Midgley

What great philosophers do for us is not to hand out such an all-purpose system. It is to light up and clarify some special aspect of life, to supply…

- Mary Midgley

Few scientists would treat their cars as badly as they treat their conceptual schemes.

- Mary Midgley