Alain de Botton Quotes, Achievement Quotes, Doe Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Achievement Quotes , Doe 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

It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Would Be Quotes , World Quotes

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ego Quotes , Ignored Quotes

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Obvious Things 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

As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

6 years ago

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

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

6 years ago

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

Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.

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

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Moving Quotes , Eye Quotes

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Class Quotes , Envy Quotes

There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Artist Quotes , Greatness 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

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

Someone who has thought rationally and deeply about how the body works is likely to arrive at better ideas about how to be healthy than someone who has followed a hunch. Medicine presupposes a hierarchy between the confusion the layperson will be in about what is wrong with him, and the more accurate knowledge available to doctors reasoning logically. At the heart of Epicureanism is the thought that we are as bad at answering the question "What will make me happy?" as "What will make me healthy?" Our souls do not spell out their troubles.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Heart Quotes , Medicine 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

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Good Relationship Quotes

People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Forgiving 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

Choosing a spouse and a choosing career: the two great decisions for which society refuses to set up institutional guidance.

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