Alain de Botton Quotes, Dream Quotes, Art Quotes

The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Dream Quotes , Art Quotes

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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Looks 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

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Art Quotes , Imagination Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Perfect Quotes

Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Rain Quotes , Giving Quotes

We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to think that to be beautiful and rich is very important - just as in the Middle Ages, people were surrounded by images of religious piety.

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

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

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

In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pain Quotes , Envy Quotes

As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , What Matters Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Impossible Quotes , Worried Quotes

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

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

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ideas Quotes , Pieces Quotes

Symons remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms - what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true calling.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Law Quotes , Ideas Quotes

These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.

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

The architects who benefit us most maybe those generous enough to lay aside their claims to genius in order to devote themselves to assembling graceful but predominantly unoriginal boxes. Architecture should have the confidence and the kindness to be a little boring.

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

Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Tasks Quotes

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.

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

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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Bombarded By Quotes

If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ambition Quotes , Love Is Quotes