“That society exists to frustrate the individual may be seen from its attitude to work. It is only morally acceptable if you do not want to do it. If you want to, it becomes a personal pleasure.”

—  Celia Green

The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)

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Celia Green 50
British philosopher 1935

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“If you want some adventure, if you want to work hard, if you want to do work with teams, if you want to see an idea from conception through its ultimate goal, science is a wonderful field to work in. It is highly rewarding.”

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Source: NASA People - Carol Raymond https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/380/carol-raymond/ - Published 3 January 2020 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20211206185649/https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/380/carol-raymond/

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“I agree that it's very difficult to come to an absolute definition of what's moral and what is not. We are on our own, without a god, and we have to get together, sit down together and decide what kind of society do we want to live in. Do we want to live in a society where people steal, where people kill, where people don't pull their weight paying their taxes, doing that kind of thing? Do we want to live in a kind of society where everybody is out for themselves in a dog-eat-dog world? And we decide in conclave together that that's not the kind of world in which we want to live. It's difficult. There is no absolute reason why we should believe that that's true - it's a moral decision which we take as individuals - and we take it collectively as a collection of individuals. If you want to get that sort of value system from religion I want you to ask yourself - whereabouts in religion do you get it? Which religion do you get it from? They're all different. If you get it from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition then I beg you - don't get it from your holy book! Because the morality you will get from reading your holy book is hideous. Don't get it from your holy book. Don't get it from sucking up to your god. Don't get it from saying “oh, I'm terrified of going to hell so I'd better be good””

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

that's a very ignoble reason to be good. Instead - be good for good reasons. Be good for the reason that's you've decided together with other people the society we want to live in: a decent humane society. Not one based on absolutism, not one based on holy books and not one based on sucking up to.. looking over your shoulder to the divine spy camera in the sky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFdPHdhgKQ&t=59m29s
Richard Dawkins vs. Jonathan Sacks - BBC's RE:Think Festival (2012)

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