Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWhat am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
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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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Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
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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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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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The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.
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You need a long hard day’s work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
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Those who divorce aren’t necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.
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The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.
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If one felt successful, there’d be so little incentive to be successful.
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Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.
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The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness”.
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I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
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Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.
ALAIN DE BOTTON