Alain de Botton Quotes, Disappointment Quotes

One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Disappointment Quotes

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.

6 years ago

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

When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

6 years ago

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

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

6 years ago

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

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

6 years ago

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

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

6 years ago

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

Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life.

6 years ago

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

A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sight Quotes , Hints Quotes

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

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

Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sublime Quotes , Bows Quotes

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Levels 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Reality Quotes , Optimism 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

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

Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Practice Quotes , Contentment Quotes

Not everyone is worth listening to.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes

By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world.

6 years ago

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

Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , May Quotes , Littles Quotes

Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Fighting Quotes , Order Quotes

Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ideas Quotes , Cynical Quotes