Alain de Botton Quotes, Gratitude Quotes, Punishment Quotes

Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Gratitude Quotes , Punishment Quotes

The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.

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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

One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.

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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.

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

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

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

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Photography Quotes , Attention Quotes

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust's therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Looks Quotes , May 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

Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.

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

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.

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It wasn't only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Stranger Quotes , Conversation Quotes

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

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

Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Optimistic Quotes , Frustration Quotes

A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ambition Quotes , Simple Quotes

Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Knowing Quotes , Exciting 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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Lying Quotes

Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Best Effort Quotes

Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Fighting Quotes , Order Quotes