Sir Alfred Jules Ayer, in his "The Meaning of Life", collected in The Meaning of Life, and Other Essays (1990).
Misattributed
“To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.”
"The Meaning of Life".
The Meaning of Life and Other Essays (1990)
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Alfred Jules Ayer 18
English philosopher 1910–1989Related quotes
Source: Money Mischief (1992), Ch. 2 The Mystery of Money
“Authors do not supply imaginations, they expect their readers to have their own, and to use it”
Cassandra (1860)
Context: There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived. The stimulus, the training, the time, are all three wanting to us; or, in other words, the means and inducements are not there.
Look at the poor lives we lead. It is a wonder that we are so good as we are, not that we are so bad. In looking round we are struck with the power of the organisations we see, not with their want of power. Now and then, it is true, we are conscious that there is an inferior organisation, but, in general, just the contrary.
“To supply goods is a source of profit, but to supply services is a ' burden upon industry.”
It is for this reason that when, as a nation, ' we have never had it so good ' we find that we ' cannot afford ' just what we most need.
Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 21, Latter-Day Capitalism, p. 239
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, First Part.
First Part of Narrative