Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWhat kills us isn’t one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can’t turn down for fear of disappointing others.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
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The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.
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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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The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
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Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
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Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don’t know certain things.
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Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
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Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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The best cure for one’s bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
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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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In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
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Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
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The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.
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Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
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