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  • Alain de Botton Quotes   372
  • In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Quotes , Princess 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Mind Quotes
  • 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Blessed Quotes , Humble Quotes
  • .. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Thinking Quotes
  • The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Play Quotes , Judgement Quotes