The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.
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In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
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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 pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
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Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
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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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We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.
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As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers – and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
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Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.
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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.
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In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
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One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
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I passionately believe that’s it’s not just what you say that counts, it’s also how you say it – that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.
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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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The best cure for one’s bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
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True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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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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It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.
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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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Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
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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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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 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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