One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIt is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
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Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
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What kills us isn’t one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can’t turn down for fear of disappointing others.
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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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Literature is the greatest reality simulator – a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
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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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The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
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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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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
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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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Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
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Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.
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To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.
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