The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.
ALAIN DE BOTTONDreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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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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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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It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.
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We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.
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There’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
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I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.
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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.
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It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver – because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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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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Not everyone is worth listening to.
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To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.
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Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
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…if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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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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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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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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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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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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Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels.
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