Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter – pleasurable, intoxicating, even – with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
ALAIN DE BOTTON
William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter – pleasurable, intoxicating, even – with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
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We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.
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Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
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Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
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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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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
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What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.
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Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
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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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I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.
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Politics is so difficult, it’s generally only people who aren’t quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
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Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
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Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON