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  • Alain de Botton Quotes   372
  • We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Justice Quotes , Phrases Quotes
  • According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Fate Quotes , Thinking Quotes
  • It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Home Quotes , Self Quotes
  • It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Achievement Quotes , Challenges Quotes