The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWhat am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
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Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
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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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Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.
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Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
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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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The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
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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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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
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When work is not going well, it’s useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers – and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
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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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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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I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.
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One’s doing well if age improves even slightly one’s capacity to hold on to that vital truism: “This too shall pass.
ALAIN DE BOTTON