A Wicked Company Quotes

“They could simply not accept that there might be no God, precisely because that would mean that life was not inherently meaningful. In their heart of hearts they were unwilling to confront the possibility that they themselves, the vast universe of every individual consciousness, could be as meaningless and as random as a leaf whirled into the air by a gust of wind. The”
― Philipp Blom, A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment

“In other words, it makes no difference whether one believes in God. As there is no way of proving or disproving the object of this belief, it remains a personal choice, much like a preference for a particular dish or for strong coffee. You may believe what you want, as long as it helps you live. This”
― Philipp Blom, A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment

“Instead of extinguishing in the heart of men the essential and natural love for themselves, morality should use it to show them the interest in being good, human, sociable, and trustworthy: far from wanting to destroy the passions inherent in his nature, morality will lead him to virtue, without which no man on earth can ever enjoy true happiness.”
― Philipp Blom, A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment

“Man believes that his welfare is a debt due to him from nature; that when he suffers evil she does him an injustice.”10 We project intentionality, good and evil, into nature, because we are with mysterious forces. We humanize nature by ascribing a will to its blind workings, a social reflex that at the same time reveals us to be deeply narcissistic; we simply cannot believe that anything around us could exist very well without us, that we are neither the purpose of creation nor the center of the universe. God”
― Philipp Blom, A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment

“any attachment bears within it the tragedy of loss.”
― Philipp Blom, A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment