The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOur capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
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The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
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The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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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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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word “luxury.
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Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
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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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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 seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.
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A good half of the art of living is resilience.
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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.
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The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness”.
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