A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
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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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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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
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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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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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The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.
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Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn’t know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
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Cynics are – beneath it all – only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
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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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It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.
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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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