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
Reason
Straight
Look
Otherwise
Looks
Fortune
Would
Seek
People
Respect
Greater
Attention
May
Secure

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
Alain de Botton
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The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.
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It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.
Alain de Botton
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Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.
Alain de Botton
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Not everyone is worth listening to.
Alain de Botton
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It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
Alain de Botton
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Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.
Alain de Botton
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We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.
Alain de Botton
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We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.
Alain de Botton
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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
Alain de Botton
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The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word luxury.
Alain de Botton
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Once I began to consider everything as being of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value.
Alain de Botton
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Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.
Alain de Botton
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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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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.
Alain de Botton
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Responsible for wrapping the iron fist of authority in its velvet glove is Jane Axtell, head of the accountancy firm's Human Resources department.
Alain de Botton
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One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
Alain de Botton