Alain de Botton Quotes, Believe Quotes, Moments Quotes

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

6 years ago

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

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

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

It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , God Quotes , Spiritual 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.

6 years ago

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The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.

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

Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Art Quotes , Philosophy 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.

6 years ago

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

There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Regret Quotes , Loss Quotes

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

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

On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Space Quotes , Community Quotes

The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Anxiety Quotes , Might 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

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

William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour. We are not always humiliated by failing; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then do not reach it.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pride Quotes , Expectations Quotes

When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread

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

The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.

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

In reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.

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

The good parent: someone who doesn't mind, for a time, being hated by their children.

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Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Annoyed Quotes , Anxiety Quotes