Alain de Botton Quotes, Company We Keep Quotes, Expectations Quotes

It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others...Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion's questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Company We Keep Quotes , Expectations Quotes

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Loss Quotes , Frustration 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Distance Quotes , Curiosity Quotes

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to think that to be beautiful and rich is very important - just as in the Middle Ages, people were surrounded by images of religious piety.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

A good half of the art of living is resilience.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sublime Quotes , Religion Quotes

Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , What Matters Quotes

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Years Quotes , Lasts Quotes

We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane; but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Action Quotes , Tendencies Quotes

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Perhaps because the origins of a certain kind of love lie in an impulse to escape ourselves and out weaknesses by an alliance with the beautiful and noble. But if the loved ones love us back, we are forced to return to ourselves, and are hence reminded of the things that had driven us into love in the first place. Perhaps it was not love we wanted after all, perhaps it was simply someone in whom to believe, but how can we continue to believe the the beloved now that they believe in us?

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Suffering Quotes , Behaviour Quotes

Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sexy Quotes , Feelings Quotes