Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 6

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• The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.

  Alain de Botton

  Esoteric, Blunt, Connected

  Alain de Botton (2003). “The Art of Travel”, p.67, Penguin UK

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• A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

  Alain de Botton

  Successful, Exciting, Interest

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• One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.

  Alain de Botton

  Age, Aging, This Too Shall Pass

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• We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

  Alain de Botton

  Intelligent, Insanity, Disease

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.125, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.

  Alain de Botton

  Thinking, Ideas, Nervous

  Alain de Botton (2012). “Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion”, p.188, Penguin UK

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• The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.

  Alain de Botton

  Play, Judgement, Identity

  Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.8, Vintage

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• In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, "Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?"

  Alain de Botton

  Successful, Years, Two

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• The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.

  Alain de Botton

  Loyalty, Finest, Proof

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• Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

  Alain de Botton

  Interesting, Hegel, Terrible

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• The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.

  Alain de Botton

  Kissing, Two, Ungrateful

  Alain De Botton (1993). “Essays in Love”

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• Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.

  Alain de Botton

  Art, Choices, Might

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• I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.

  Alain de Botton

  Believe, Argument, Presenting

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• Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.

  Alain de Botton

  Bitterness

  Twitter post from Jun 13, 2014

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• People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.

  Alain de Botton

  People, Important, Identity

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• What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

  Alain de Botton

  Levels, Objects

  "The Architecture of Happiness". Book by Alain de Botton, September, 2006.

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• We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

  Alain de Botton

  People, Looks, Attention

  Alain de Botton (2001). “The Consolations of Philosophy”, p.60, Penguin UK

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• It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

  Alain de Botton

  Motivation, Inspiration, Careers

  "A kinder, gentler philosophy of success". TED Talk, www.ted.com. July, 2009.

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• When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

  Alain de Botton

  Motivation, Inspiration, Moon

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• Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.

  Alain de Botton

  Happiness, Emotional, Expression

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

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• Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

  Alain de Botton

  Eels, Style, Mind

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

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• We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.

  Alain de Botton

  Home, Mind, Important

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• Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is gazing out of the window – a perfect love story interrupted only when the beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.

  Alain de Botton

  Beautiful, Falling In Love, Journey

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.40, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.

  Alain de Botton

  Pain, Insomnia, Injury

  Twitter post from Sep 18, 2012

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• Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.

  Alain de Botton

  Ideas, Cynical, Feelings

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• Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.

  Alain de Botton

  Gratitude, Punishment, Paying Taxes

  Twitter post from Sep 23, 2012

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