Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIf 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.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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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 the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm… it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.
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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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As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.
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Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.
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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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We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
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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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Dreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
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Not everyone is worth listening to.
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I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
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Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
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We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
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