We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWork is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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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.
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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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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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After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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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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Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.
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One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.
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Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
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The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
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The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.
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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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON