Alain de Botton Quotes, Want Quotes, Married Quotes

What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.

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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.

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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

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We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.

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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.

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That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

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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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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.

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It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.

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Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.

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Curiosity takes ignorance seriously - and is confident enough to admit when it's in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.

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I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.

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Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?

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A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

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Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?

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

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Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Essence Quotes , Alive Quotes

Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Purpose Quotes

If the behaviour of babies and small children is any guide, we emerge into the world with our tendencies to imbalance already well entrenched. In our playpens and high chairs, we are rarely far from displaying either hysterical happiness or savage disappointment, love or rage, mania or exhaustion--and, despite the growth of a more temperate exterior in adulthood, we seldom succeed in laying claim to lasting equilibrium, traversing our lives like stubbornly listing ships on choppy seas.

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