The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
ALAIN DE BOTTONAn argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap
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As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.
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It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
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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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One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.
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Those who divorce aren’t necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.
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Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.
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Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
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Curiosity takes ignorance seriously – and is confident enough to admit when it’s in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.
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Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.
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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
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The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
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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.
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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
ALAIN DE BOTTON