Alain de Botton Quotes, Age Quotes, Aging Quotes

One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Age Quotes , Aging Quotes

The origins and travels of our purchases remain matters of indifference, although to the more imaginative at least a slight dampness at the bottom of a carton, or an obscure code printed along a computer cable, may hint at processes of manufacture and transport nobler and more mysterious, more worthy of wonder and study, than the very goods themselves.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hints Quotes , May 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Kissing Quotes , Two 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

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Children Quotes , Parent Quotes

We need objects to remind us of the commitments we've made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we're in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Commitment Quotes

Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Distance Quotes , Curiosity Quotes

We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mind Quotes , New Work Quotes

We don't exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand, while to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed; their knowledge and care for us have the power to pull us from our numbness. In small comments, many of them teasing, they reveal they know our foibles and except them and so, in turn, accept that we have a place in the world.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Numbness Quotes , Identity Quotes

A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.

6 years ago

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

6 years ago

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

[T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Assessment Quotes , Differences Quotes

We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.

6 years ago

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

The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Glasses Quotes , Understanding Quotes

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Smartphones Quotes , Interesting Quotes

Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.

6 years ago

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

6 years ago

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

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.

6 years ago

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

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.

6 years ago

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

Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, "Don't you worry about being called names?" retorted, "Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?

6 years ago

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