Alain de Botton Quotes, Levels 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.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Levels Quotes

It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Would Be Quotes , World Quotes

Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.

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

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Suffering Quotes , Behaviour Quotes

to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap

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

The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.

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

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Summer Quotes , Berries Quotes

Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

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

The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.

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

Most good thinking has its origin in fear.

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Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

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Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , High Standards Quotes , Standards Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Significant Things Quotes , People Quotes

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.

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

Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Best Effort Quotes

Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love And Friendship Quotes , And Love Quotes

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Relationship Quotes , Intimacy Quotes

Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

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

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

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

I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Connections Quotes