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  • Alain de Botton Quotes   372
  • There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspire Quotes , One Day Quotes
  • Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Religious Quotes , Atheist 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.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Summer Quotes , Berries 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.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lonely Quotes , Book 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.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Heart Quotes
  • It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Achievement Quotes , Challenges 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.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Gratitude Quotes , Grateful Quotes
  • In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, "Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?"
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Years Quotes
  • I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.
    • 5 years ago



    Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sports Quotes , Real Quotes
  • Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver.
    • 5 years ago



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