Alain de Botton Quotes, Book Quotes, Writing Quotes

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

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

We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

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

Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

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As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

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Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.

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Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

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That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Night Quotes , Men Quotes

These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.

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

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We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

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

Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Happiness Quotes , Success Quotes

We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.

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Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

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As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.

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I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

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

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Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

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It wasn't only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.

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Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.

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