It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
ALAIN DE BOTTONMan 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.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Literature is the greatest reality simulator – a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
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A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
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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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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
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The more closely we analyze what we consider ‘sexy,’ the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.
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The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
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People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
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Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.
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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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We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
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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 pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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