Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWe need objects to remind us of the commitments we’ve made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we’re in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
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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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In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water.
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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
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The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
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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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Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.
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Curiosity takes ignorance seriously – and is confident enough to admit when it’s in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.
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Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.
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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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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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON