Living on the Bright Side
Brights navigate their time alive on the planet absent conceptions of supernatural agency. As they aim for meaningful lives, they will draw on personal experiences and make their own meanings in life. With a naturalistic worldview, free of supernatural, brights just don’t think of any deities or mystical forces being at large, calling any shots.
So, what do individuals find consequential and keep topmost in their minds as they traverse what life may offer them?
On this web page, we provide a small sampling of “best quotes” recently tendered by individual Brights as personal favorites. Some quotes are tidbits of self-created philosophy. Some are thought provokers. Some are maxims from like-minded persons found appealing. Still other sayings are simply enjoyable thoughts they relish (for reasons only they could explain).
Together, these items illustrate the individuality of Brights as well as the diverse ways that persons with a naturalistic worldview will constitute a “just-one-life-to-live” mindset.
| One Bright’s Favorite Quote | Contributing Bright |
| Friendship
ain't jus' claspin' hands and saying "Howdy-do".
Friendship grips a feller's heart - An' warms it through an'
through.
Lawrence
Hawthorne (Writings, 1926)
|
Elwin NSW, Australia |
| In our amazing universe, the
supernatural is superfluous. Personal philosophy
|
Scott Georgia, USA |
| I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and
billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the
slightest inconvenience from it. Mark Twain
|
Carlena Uruguay |
| My country is the world, and my religion is to do
good. Thomas Paine
|
Several Brights UK and USA |
| I can choose to not be part of the problem by my
personal behavior. Personal philosophy
|
Barb Arizona, USA |
| The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable
man. George Bernard Shaw
From Maxims for Revolutionists |
Donald Mexico |
| Ubi dubium, ibi libertas (Where there is doubt, there
is freedom) Anonymous (Latin Proverb)
|
Rony Israel |
| Don’t always believe what you think. Personal precept
|
Claude New Mexico |
| Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. Samuel Butler
|
Richard UK |
| We are cosmically
insignificant, a speck in space and a blink in time,
inconceivably unimportant—except to each other, to whom we
should therefore be unspeakably precious. Dale McGowan
|
Clara Delaware, USA |
| Save death for last. Personal precept
|
Mike Colorado, USA |
| Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet. Bob Marley
|
Susan Canada |
| Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in
contradiction to what we know of it. And that’s a place to
start. That’s where the hope is. Chris Carter (writing for a
character
in The X-Files, Season 4 episode) |
Bodhisattva World Citizen |
| The next best thing to being clever is being able to
quote someone who is. Mary Pettibone Poole in A Glass Eye
at a Keyhole
|
Roberta Alaska, USA |
| The invisible and the non-existent look very much
alike. Delos McKown
|
Mary Catherine Kentucky, USA |
| Theists see evidence where there is none. Secularists
see nothing until there is some. Personal observation
|
David UK |
| That which can be asserted without evidence, can be
dismissed without evidence. Christopher Hitchens
|
Lauryn South Africa |
| When the going gets weird, the weird turn
professional. Hunter S. Thompson,
From Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 |
Joao Portugal |
| The world is only a blue bag; knock a squeeze out of
it while you can. Eric Cross
From the Tailor in The Tailor and Ansty |
Liam Ireland |
| I have lived my life and I know now there is no one
thing that is true. It is all true. Ernest Hemingway
From For Whom the Bell Tolls |
James Illinois, USA |
| A god doesn't work in mysterious ways; brains work in
mysterious ways. Personal conclusion
|
Stormy Idaho, USA |
| Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people
wanting to be important. Anonymous (in the Washington State
Fruit Growers Association magazine) |
Frank BC, Canada |
| There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me,
than in half the creeds. Alfred Tennyson
|
Daryl New Zealand |
| It’s a good day when I learn something new; it’s a
great day when I learn something new that overturns something I
thought I knew. Kyle Wyatt
|
Mynga California, USA |
| Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years
ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more
clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with
me. Fred Van Amburgh
|
Pierre Belgium |
| Neither morality nor religion has a monopoly over the
other. Personal conclusion
|
Harmon Ohio, USA |
| Nature knows not nothing. Personal conclusion
|
Quest California, USA |
| Love is that condition in which the happiness of
another person is essential to your own. Robert Heinlein
From Stranger in a Strange Land |
Jerilyn Kansas, USA |
| No one knows what we are caught up in so no one knows
what to do about it. This means all religions and philosophies
are false - and no one has anything to teach you about these
things. Personal conclusion
|
M. Scott Canada |
| Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions
can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are
all wrong. Christopher Hitchens
|
Dmitry Russia |
