Alain de Botton Quotes, Writing Quotes, What Matters Quotes

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

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

The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.

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

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Wish Quotes , Agents Quotes

The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.

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

At the beginning of human history, as we struggled to light fires and to chisel fallen trees into rudimentary canoes, who could have predicted that long after we had managed to send men to the moon and areoplanes to Australasia, we would still have such trouble knowing how to tolerate ourselves, forgive our loved ones, and apologise for our tantrums?

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

We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mind Quotes , New Work Quotes

Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Tasks 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

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

There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.

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In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge.

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

There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Significant Things Quotes , People Quotes