Which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThere 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.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
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He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
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We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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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.
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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
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The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
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It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
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The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
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We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
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