I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
ALAIN DE BOTTONPhilosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Politics is so difficult, it’s generally only people who aren’t quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
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As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
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The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness”.
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The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other’s smartphone.
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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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Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.
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What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.
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When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I’m basically the child of Richard Dawkins.
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The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
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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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What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
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You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
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A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.
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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.
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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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