Alain de Botton Quotes, Kids Quotes, Thinking Quotes

We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane; but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Kids Quotes , Thinking Quotes

We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mind Quotes , New Work Quotes

We should not be frightened by appearances.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Appearance Quotes , Should Quotes

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Esoteric Quotes , Blunt Quotes

We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Order Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Action Quotes , Tendencies Quotes

The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Country Quotes , May Quotes

Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation; I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Travel Quotes , Journey Quotes

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tools Quotes , Literature Quotes

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Appreciation Quotes

Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty, compromise, and stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our faults. We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves, and through our union with the beloved hope to maintain (against the evidence of all self-knowledge) a precarious faith in our species.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Elude Us Quotes

When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I'm basically the child of Richard Dawkins.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Children Quotes , Father Quotes

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Heart Quotes

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Philosophy Quotes , Writing Quotes

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Smartphones Quotes , Interesting Quotes

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Writing Quotes

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe Quotes