It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIt was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
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The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
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There is real danger of a disconnect between what’s on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it’s not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
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How do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
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Politics is so difficult, it’s generally only people who aren’t quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
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Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.
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Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, “Don’t you worry about being called names?” retorted, “Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?
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Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
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So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.
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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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON