Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
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The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
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After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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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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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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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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The problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
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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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Once I began to consider everything as being of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value.
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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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You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
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What kills us isn’t one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can’t turn down for fear of disappointing others.
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Not everyone is worth listening to.
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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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON