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?
ALAIN DE BOTTONWe 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.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
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The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
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Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.
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All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.
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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.
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Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
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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.
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The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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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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Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others – because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
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The more closely we analyze what we consider ‘sexy,’ the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.
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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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A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
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