Alain de Botton Quotes, Kissing Quotes, Two Quotes

The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Kissing Quotes , Two Quotes

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hands Quotes , Telephones Quotes

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Relationship Quotes , Intimacy Quotes

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Genius Quotes , Structure Quotes

It should not be Illiers-Combray that we visit: a genuine homage to Proust would be to look at our world through his eyes, not look at his world through our eyes.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Eye Quotes , Our World 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.

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

Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that's what we are.

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

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

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

Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Eels Quotes , Style Quotes

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Summer Quotes , Berries 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

One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.

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

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Media Quotes , People 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

We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane; but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.

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

Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is gazing out of the window – a perfect love story interrupted only when the beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.

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

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Communication Quotes , Ideas Quotes

Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , High Standards Quotes , Standards Quotes

A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

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

.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.

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