The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness”.
ALAIN DE BOTTONMost good thinking has its origin in fear.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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How do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
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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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We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.
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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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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
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We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.
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The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
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Yet often, they know but just don’t care. So the task of serious journalism isn’t just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.
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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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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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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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Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter – pleasurable, intoxicating, even – with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
ALAIN DE BOTTON