The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.
ALAIN DE BOTTONJourneys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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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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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
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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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Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
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The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
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What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.
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What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions.
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As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
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When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
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Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn’t know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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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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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers – and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
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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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