Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
ALAIN DE BOTTONLiterature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.
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When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
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Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others – because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
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Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
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I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.
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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
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The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
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Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.
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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 is striking how much more seriously we are likely to be taken after we have been dead a few centuries.
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money.
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We need objects to remind us of the commitments we’ve made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we’re in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON