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.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWhat should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
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A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.
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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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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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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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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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Yet often, they know but just don’t care. So the task of serious journalism isn’t just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.
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Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.
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All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.
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It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.
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People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
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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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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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