It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.
ALAIN DE BOTTONSo many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.
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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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Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.
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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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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
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Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others – because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
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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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Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
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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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We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
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The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn’t call.
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Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.
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Yet often, they know but just don’t care. So the task of serious journalism isn’t just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.
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