Alain de Botton Quotes, Drinking Quotes, Self Quotes

The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Drinking Quotes , Self Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Fighting Quotes , Balance Quotes

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

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

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

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Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

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

Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Building Up Quotes , Wave Quotes

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

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

Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Best Effort 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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Views Quotes , Quality Quotes

Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

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

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hands Quotes , Telephones Quotes

Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.

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

The origins and travels of our purchases remain matters of indifference, although to the more imaginative at least a slight dampness at the bottom of a carton, or an obscure code printed along a computer cable, may hint at processes of manufacture and transport nobler and more mysterious, more worthy of wonder and study, than the very goods themselves.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hints Quotes , May Quotes

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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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Beautiful Things Quotes

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Anxiety Quotes , Shifting Quotes

The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.

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We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Envy Quotes , Trying 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

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

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