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  • Alain de Botton Quotes   372
  • Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Sunday Quotes
  • Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Smell Quotes , People Quotes
  • Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sublime Quotes , Bows Quotes
  • When work is not going well, it's useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers - and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Long Quotes , People 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.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Justice Quotes , Phrases Quotes
  • We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.
  • 6 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Views Quotes , Quality 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.
  • 6 years ago



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