Alain de Botton Quotes, Mind Quotes, Safe Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mind Quotes , Safe Quotes

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Quotes , Two Quotes

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.

6 years ago

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

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

6 years ago

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The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.

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

Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Revenge Quotes , Victory Quotes

The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Glasses Quotes , Understanding Quotes

I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Connections Quotes

That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Night Quotes , Men Quotes

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

6 years ago

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

Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

6 years ago

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

At the beginning of human history, as we struggled to light fires and to chisel fallen trees into rudimentary canoes, who could have predicted that long after we had managed to send men to the moon and areoplanes to Australasia, we would still have such trouble knowing how to tolerate ourselves, forgive our loved ones, and apologise for our tantrums?

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Moon Quotes , Men 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.

6 years ago

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

We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hopeful Quotes , Angry Quotes

We should not be frightened by appearances.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Appearance Quotes , Should 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

A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Matter Quotes , Moments Quotes

Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hurt Quotes , Giving Up Quotes

It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Important Quotes , Benefits Quotes

What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Vision Quotes , Use Quotes