Alain de Botton Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Mean Quotes

He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Depressing Quotes , Mean Quotes

We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Intelligent Quotes , Insanity 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

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Wisdom Quotes , Taken Quotes

It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Beach Quotes , Hate Quotes

Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Reality Quotes , Optimism Quotes

Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.

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

What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Vision Quotes , Use Quotes

I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.

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

Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Practice Quotes , Contentment 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

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Philosophy Quotes , Writing 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

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

Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.

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

Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Impossible Quotes , Worried Quotes

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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Friendship Quotes , Travel Quotes

What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tiny Quotes , Disappointing Quotes

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.

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

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Worry Quotes , Enjoy Life Quotes