Alain de Botton Quotes, Ego Quotes, Ignored Quotes

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ego Quotes , Ignored Quotes

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Suffering Quotes , Behaviour 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.

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

On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Space Quotes , Community 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.

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Levels Quotes

A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.

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

Dreams reveal we never quite get 'over' anything: it's all still in there somewhere.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Dream Quotes , Get Over Quotes

Our sense of what is valuable will hence be radically distorted if we must perpetually condemn as tedious everything we lack, simply because we lack it.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Valuable Quotes , Tedious Quotes

The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.

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

It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

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

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Action Quotes , Tendencies Quotes

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.

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

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

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

We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.

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

There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lazy Quotes , Sloth Quotes

The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Loyalty Quotes , Finest Quotes

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Genius Quotes , Structure Quotes

At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.

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

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

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