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.
ALAIN DE BOTTONMaturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.
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Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
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In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.
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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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Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.
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It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.
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It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming… If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept more graciously the great, unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.
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The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.
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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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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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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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The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
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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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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
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