Alain de Botton Quotes, Giving Up Quotes, Ambition Quotes

What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Giving Up Quotes , Ambition Quotes

Good sex isn't just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.

6 years ago

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

The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mistake Quotes , Degrees Quotes

To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Is Quotes , Views Quotes

After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

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

The media insists on taking what someone didn't mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mean Quotes

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes

People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Personality 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

Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Contentment Quotes , World 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

True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Majority Quotes , Stem Quotes

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Achievement Quotes , Doe Quotes

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

6 years ago

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

Despite its maddeningly vague, inarticulate form, anxiety is almost always trying to tell you something useful and apposite.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Always Trying Quotes , Anxiety Quotes

Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.

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

Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Photography Quotes , Attention 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

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

Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities - and we should take care.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Bombarded By 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