It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
ALAIN DE BOTTONBecause it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
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We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
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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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The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.
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Dreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
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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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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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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
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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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Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
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Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
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We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
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You need a long hard day’s work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
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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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Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
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