Alain de Botton Quotes, Inspire Quotes, One Day Quotes

There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspire Quotes , One Day 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.

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

We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.

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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

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You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them.

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Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Summer Quotes , Berries Quotes

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

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One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.

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

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To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

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The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

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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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The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.

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

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Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.

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The pre-scientific age, whatever its deficiencies, had at least offered its members the peace of mind that follows from knowing all man-made achievements to be nothing next to the grandeur of the universe. We, more blessed in our gadgetry but less humble in our outlook, have been left... having no more compelling repository of veneration than our brilliant, precise, blinkered and morally troubling fellow human beings.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Blessed Quotes , Humble Quotes

I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.

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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

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Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

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Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.

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