Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIn their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.
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The only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things
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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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Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
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We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
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We need objects to remind us of the commitments we’ve made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we’re in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.
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The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
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As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers – and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.
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Because 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.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
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What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
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