Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 15

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• We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

  Alain de Botton

  Home, Dwelling, Islands

  "On anticipation". www.theguardian.com. May 21, 2002.

  5 Copy quote

• It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.

  Alain de Botton

  Book, Giving, Feelings

  11 Copy quote

• It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

  Alain de Botton

  God, Spiritual, Religious

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• Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.

  Alain de Botton

  Reality, Choices, Painting

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• For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.

  Alain de Botton

  Understanding, Laziness, Bob

  "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work". Book by Alain de Botton, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.

  Alain de Botton

  Hurt, Giving Up, Pain

  Alain de Botton (2006). “On Love: A Novel”, p.45, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  6 Copy quote

• There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

  Alain de Botton

  Artist, Greatness, Landscape

  8 Copy quote

• Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities - and we should take care.

  Alain de Botton

  Successful, Bombarded By, Priorities

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• We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

  Alain de Botton

  Envy, Trying, Diaries

  Twitter post from Dec 29, 2012

  6 Copy quote

• Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

  Alain de Botton

  Jobs, Sunday, Personality

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• I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.

  Alain de Botton

  Writing, Fiction, Uncomfortable

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available.

  Alain de Botton

  Ambition, Simple, Destiny

  6 Copy quote

• The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.

  Alain de Botton

  God, Soul, World

  "TED | Alain deBotton: Atheism 2.0 – Notes & Review". vialogue.wordpress.com. January 22, 2012.

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• According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

  Alain de Botton

  Love, Men, Portraits

  5 Copy quote

• Despite its maddeningly vague, inarticulate form, anxiety is almost always trying to tell you something useful and apposite.

  Alain de Botton

  Always Trying, Anxiety, Form

  Twitter post from Apr 22, 2013

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• Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.

  Alain de Botton

  Space, Shy, Manipulation

  5 Copy quote

• If the behaviour of babies and small children is any guide, we emerge into the world with our tendencies to imbalance already well entrenched. In our playpens and high chairs, we are rarely far from displaying either hysterical happiness or savage disappointment, love or rage, mania or exhaustion--and, despite the growth of a more temperate exterior in adulthood, we seldom succeed in laying claim to lasting equilibrium, traversing our lives like stubbornly listing ships on choppy seas.

  Alain de Botton

  Baby, Disappointment, Children

  5 Copy quote

• I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.

  Alain de Botton

  Nice, Church

  4 Copy quote

• I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.

  Alain de Botton

  Writing, Use, Naivety

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• We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

  Alain de Botton

  God, Soul, Trying

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• On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

  Alain de Botton

  Space, Community, Atmosphere

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• A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

  Alain de Botton

  Matter, Moments, Significant

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