People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIf 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.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
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We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
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The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.
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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
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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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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.
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Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
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The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.
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Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.
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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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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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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
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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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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
ALAIN DE BOTTON