Alain de Botton Quotes, Beautiful Quotes, Should Quotes

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

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

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.

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Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.

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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

I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.

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

Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation; I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.

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

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

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Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.

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

No one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment.

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

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The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

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Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Food Quotes , People 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.

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

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

Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread

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If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.

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There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.

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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

If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

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