If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIntuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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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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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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I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.
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These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.
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One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
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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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The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word “luxury.
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A good half of the art of living is resilience.
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It 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.
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.
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You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
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Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance.
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Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
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Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
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