It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
ALAIN DE BOTTONHow do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
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One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
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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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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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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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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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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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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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Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.
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We should read other people’s books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer’s thought that help us to do so.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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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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The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.
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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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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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The best cure for one’s bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
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to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap
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Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
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The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other’s smartphone.
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Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
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Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
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Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
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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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Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
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