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.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOne of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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The problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
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What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.
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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I’m basically the child of Richard Dawkins.
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To one’s enemies: “I hate myself more than you ever could.
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Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.
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We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.
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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.
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Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON