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Alain De Botton Inspirational Quotes (321)

Page 11 of 14
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Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
Alain de Botton
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Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
Alain de Botton
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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.
Alain de Botton
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Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.
Alain de Botton
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Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone they're for all of us.
Alain de Botton
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Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread
Alain de Botton
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He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
Alain de Botton
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We should not be frightened by appearances.
Alain de Botton
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We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).
Alain de Botton
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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
Alain de Botton
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Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.
Alain de Botton
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Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
Alain de Botton
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Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
Alain de Botton
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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.
Alain de Botton
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One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.
Alain de Botton
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To cut out every negative root would simultaneously mean choking off positive elements that might arise from it further up the stem of the plant. We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
Alain de Botton
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