Quote

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 Botton

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Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Look
Otherwise
Looks
Fortune
Would
Seek
People
Respect
Greater
Attention
May
Secure
Reason
Straight

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It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.
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The architects who benefit us most maybe those generous enough to lay aside their claims to genius in order to devote themselves to assembling graceful but predominantly unoriginal boxes. Architecture should have the confidence and the kindness to be a little boring.
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The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.
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We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.
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A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.
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Our sense of what is valuable will hence be radically distorted if we must perpetually condemn as tedious everything we lack, simply because we lack it.
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If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.
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Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.
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Not everyone is worth listening to.
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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.
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Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
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Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.
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Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.
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One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
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The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I'm basically the child of Richard Dawkins.
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The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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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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