Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWe are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
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It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
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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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Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
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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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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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For paranoia about ‘what other people think’ : remember that only some hate, a very few love – and almost all just don’t care.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
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Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.
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Those who divorce aren’t necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
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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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Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
ALAIN DE BOTTON