Alain de Botton Quotes, Children Quotes, Parent Quotes

The good parent: someone who doesn't mind, for a time, being hated by their children.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Children Quotes , Parent Quotes

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

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

What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Numbers Quotes , People 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

Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , Self 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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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tools Quotes , Literature Quotes

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

Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

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

We tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it. ... Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it." That's what all religions tell us: "Get on your knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day." Otherwise our minds are like sieves.

6 years ago

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

Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Regret Quotes , Opportunity 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

To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Humanity Quotes , Looks Quotes

The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.

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

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Crowds Quotes , Stuff Quotes

The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Glasses Quotes , Understanding Quotes

Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.

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

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Dream Quotes , Get Over Quotes

According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

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

At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Heart Quotes

The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Drawing Quotes , Looks Quotes