We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOne rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
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Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
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What kills us isn’t one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can’t turn down for fear of disappointing others.
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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
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When work is not going well, it’s useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers – and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
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Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.
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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money.
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As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
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