Alain de Botton Quotes, Food Quotes, People Quotes

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

6 years ago

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

Year-end financial statements express a truth about office life which is no less irrefutable yet also, in the end, no less irrelevant or irritating than an evolutionary biologist's proud reminder that the purpose of existence lies in the propagation of our genes.

6 years ago

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

A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Matter Quotes , Moments 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

It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Self Hatred Quotes

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sports Quotes , Real 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

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Achievement Quotes , Doe Quotes

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

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hands Quotes , Telephones Quotes

Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.

6 years ago

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

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

6 years ago

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

A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Travel Quotes , Information Quotes

Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Disrespect 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

One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Giving Up Quotes , Home Quotes

William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour. We are not always humiliated by failing; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then do not reach it.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pride Quotes , Expectations Quotes

You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Long Quotes , Alcohol Quotes

What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tiny Quotes , Disappointing Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hurt Quotes , Light Quotes

I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.

6 years ago

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