Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as ‘doing nothing’.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOur 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.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
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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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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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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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Which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.
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I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
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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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Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
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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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The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
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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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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
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Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
ALAIN DE BOTTON