Alain de Botton Quotes, Dream Quotes, Believe 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

I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.

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

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 attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Play Quotes , Judgement Quotes

Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Joy Quotes , Remarkable 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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , God Quotes , Spiritual 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

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Wish Quotes , Agents Quotes

The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sadness Quotes , Worry Quotes

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Class Quotes , Envy Quotes

The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Drawing Quotes , Looks Quotes

There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Artist Quotes , Greatness 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.

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

Rather than teasing the buyers, we may blame the society in which they lived for setting up a situation where the purchase of ornate cabinets felt psychologically necessary and rewarding, where respect was dependent on baroque displays. Rather than a tale of greed, the history of luxury could more accurately be read as a record of emotional trauma. It is the legacy of those who have felt pressured by the disdain of others to add an extraordinary amount to their bare selves in order to signal that they too may lay a claim to love.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Emotional Quotes , Luxury Quotes

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

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

An understandable hunger for potential clients tempts many [career counseling therapists] to overpromise, like creative writing teachers who, out of greed or sentimentality, sometimes imply that all of their students could one day produce worthwhile literature, rather than frankly acknowledging the troubling truth, anathema to a democratic society, that the great writer, like the contented worker, remains an erratic and anomalous event, immune to the methods of factory farming.

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

Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mind Quotes , Safe Quotes

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Art Quotes , Feelings Quotes

Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.

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

I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Nice Quotes