Alain de Botton Quotes, Achievement Quotes, Ordinary 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

It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Obvious Things Quotes

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

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

Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.

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

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Glasses 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

A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Matter Quotes , Moments Quotes

to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Mean 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

For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.

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

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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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , God Quotes , Religious Quotes

We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Justice Quotes , Phrases Quotes

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.

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

In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pain Quotes , Envy Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Destiny Quotes , Stronger Quotes

There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.

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

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

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

Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.

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

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Good Relationship Quotes