Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 2

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Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

Alain de Botton

Mind, Safe, Mental Health

Twitter post from Sep 20, 2015

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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

Alain de Botton

Sadness, Feelings, Weakness

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Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that's what we are.

Alain de Botton

Thinking, Opposites, Anxiety

"Alain de Botton's Healing Arts" by Joshua Rothman, www.newyorker.com. November 19, 2013.

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The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.

Alain de Botton

Sexy, Feelings, Excitement

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A good half of the art of living is resilience.

Alain de Botton

Art, Resilience, Half

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Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

Alain de Botton

Knowing, Exciting, Fulfilling

Twitter post from Nov 14, 2014

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Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

Alain de Botton

Achievement, Doe, Affection

Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.77, Vintage

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I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

Alain de Botton

Jobs, Perfect, Excuse

"Office affairs". Interview with Lynn Barber, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2009.

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Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Alain de Botton

Worry, Enjoy Life, Anxiety

Twitter post from Oct 12, 2012

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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.

Alain de Botton

Lying, Heart, Frustration

"The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, Chapter III, Consolation For Frustration, 2000.

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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.

Alain de Botton

Heart, People, Special

Twitter post from Sep 18, 2012

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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.

Alain de Botton

Thinking, People, Matter

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To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.

Alain de Botton

Falling In Love, Lying, Confused

Alain de Botton (2006). “On Love: A Novel”, p.48, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.

Alain de Botton

Suicide, Animal, Inability

Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.113, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

Alain de Botton

Beautiful, Witty, Falling In Love

Alain De Botton (1993). “On Love”, Grove/Atlantic

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What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

Alain de Botton

Tiny, Disappointing, Bigs

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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

Alain de Botton

Good Life, Crazy, Optimism

Twitter post from Jan 13, 2013

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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

Alain de Botton

Impossible, Worried, Minutes

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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

Alain de Botton

Real, Judgement, Intuition

Twitter post from Feb 05, 2013

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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

Alain de Botton

Writing, Doing Nothing, Exceed

Twitter post from Mar 26, 2015

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The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

Alain de Botton

Action, Tendencies, Cures

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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

Alain de Botton

People, Interesting, Bars

Twitter post from Apr 18, 2011

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Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

Alain de Botton

Thinking, Disrespect, Gazing

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Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.

Alain de Botton

Book, Emotion, Good Book

Twitter post from Oct 13, 2013

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Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

Alain de Botton

Book, Reading, Moments

Twitter post from Sep 16, 2013

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Alain de Botton

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Born: December 20, 1969
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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