Alain de Botton Quotes, Happiness Quotes, Success Quotes

Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one.

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Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.

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The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.

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Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.

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One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds.

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

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Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

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

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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

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People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

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Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

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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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He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

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Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance.

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Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

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After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

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

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The architects who benefit us most maybe those generous enough to lay aside their claims to genius in order to devote themselves to assembling graceful but predominantly unoriginal boxes. Architecture should have the confidence and the kindness to be a little boring.

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One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Danger Quotes