Alain de Botton Quotes, Ignorance Quotes, Dark Quotes

Curiosity takes ignorance seriously - and is confident enough to admit when it's in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ignorance Quotes , Dark Quotes

There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Real Quotes , Cards Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspire Quotes , One Day Quotes

The only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Looks Quotes , Way 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

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

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.

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

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

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

People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Important 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

The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Loyalty Quotes , Finest Quotes

Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Photography Quotes , Attention Quotes

Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , Self Quotes

The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Want 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

Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Sunday Quotes

A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Suicide Quotes , Animal 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

People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

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