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.
ALAIN DE BOTTONAs adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.
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Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.
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Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
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My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.
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We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.
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One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
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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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Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
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Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
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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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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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The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.
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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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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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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money.
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The best cure for one’s bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
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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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Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
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It 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.
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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