Alain de Botton Quotes, Thinking Quotes, Disrespect Quotes

Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Disrespect 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

We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.

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

Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

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

If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Incentives Quotes

Our bodies hold our minds hostage to their whims and rhythms.

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

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

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

Nowhere was the airport's charm more concentrated than on the screens placed at intervals across the terminal which announced, in deliberately workmanlike fonts, the itineraries of aircraft about to take to the skies. These screens implied a feeling of infinite and immediate possibility: they suggested the ease with which we might impulsively approach a ticket desk and, within a few hours, embark for a country where the call to prayer rang out over shuttered whitewashed houses, where we understood nothing of the language and where no one knew our identities.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Country Quotes , Prayer Quotes

Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.

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

How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Accepting 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

We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.

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

The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Thinking 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

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

One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Disappointment Quotes

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

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

A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Work Quotes

Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, "Don't you worry about being called names?" retorted, "Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?

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

The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.

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