The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
ALAIN DE BOTTONMental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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How do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
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Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
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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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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
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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.
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There is real danger of a disconnect between what’s on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it’s not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
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The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other’s smartphone.
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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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Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.
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Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter – pleasurable, intoxicating, even – with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
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Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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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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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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