Alain de Botton Quotes, Home Quotes, Self Quotes

It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.

6 years ago

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

Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Rain Quotes , Giving Quotes

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.

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

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust's therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Looks Quotes , May 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

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

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

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Quotes , Two Quotes

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Laughter Quotes , Optimistic Quotes

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

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

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

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

It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.

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

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Practice Quotes , Play Quotes

We need objects to remind us of the commitments we've made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we're in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.

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

I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.

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

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Trying Quotes , Truthful Quotes

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Order Quotes

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

The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , War Quotes , Land Quotes

Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.

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