We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.
ALAIN DE BOTTONI feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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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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Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance.
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After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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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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Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
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We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.
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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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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
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The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.
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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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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
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There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON