Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
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It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming… If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept more graciously the great, unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.
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Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
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When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
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My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
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We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
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Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
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We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
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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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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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Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON