Alain de Botton Quotes, Loss Quotes, Frustration Quotes

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Loss Quotes , Frustration Quotes

Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Optimistic Quotes , Frustration 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.

6 years ago

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

A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.

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

A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

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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

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

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

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

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

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

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

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

We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Museums Quotes , Secular Society 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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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

The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mistake Quotes , Degrees Quotes

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Levels Quotes

It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others...Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion's questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Company We Keep Quotes , Expectations 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

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Trying Quotes , Truthful Quotes

It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sublime Quotes , Religion Quotes

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

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