Alain de Botton Quotes, Smartphones Quotes, Interesting Quotes

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Smartphones Quotes , Interesting Quotes

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

6 years ago

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There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.

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

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Happiness Quotes , Quests Quotes

People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.

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The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury.

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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

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The real issue is not whether baking biscuits is meaningful, but the extent to which the activity can seem to be so after it has been continuously stretched and subdivided across five thousand lives.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Meaningful Quotes , Real Quotes

Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

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The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.

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

As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hurt Quotes , Light Quotes

According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.

6 years ago

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

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

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The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.

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True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.

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On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Space Quotes , Community Quotes

There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Real Quotes , Cards Quotes

We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Intelligent Quotes , Insanity Quotes

To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Lying Quotes