Alain de Botton Quotes, Atheist Quotes, Thinking Quotes

As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Atheist Quotes , Thinking 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

Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.

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

It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.

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

The real issue is not whether baking biscuits is meaningful, but the extent to which the activity can seem to be so after it has been continuously stretched and subdivided across five thousand lives.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Meaningful Quotes , Real Quotes

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Health 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

I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.

6 years ago

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

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Worry Quotes , Enjoy Life Quotes

A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Suicide Quotes , Animal Quotes

It wasn't only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Stranger Quotes , Conversation Quotes

Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , World Quotes , Serious Quotes

We tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it. ... Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it." That's what all religions tell us: "Get on your knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day." Otherwise our minds are like sieves.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Mind 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

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire.

6 years ago

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

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

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

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Character Quotes , Parent Quotes

Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life.

6 years ago

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

Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.

6 years ago

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

What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Home Quotes , Exotic Quotes