It’s as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you’re living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
ALAIN DE BOTTONLiterature is the greatest reality simulator – a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
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A good half of the art of living is resilience.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
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Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.
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Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
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One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
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Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And 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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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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Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
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Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as ‘doing nothing’.
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The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
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We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
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