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My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.

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
Place
Writing
Always
Sane
Attempt
Stay
Personal
Came

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.
Alain de Botton
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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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Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.
Alain de Botton
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Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don't know certain things. Yet often, they know but just don't care. So the task of serious journalism isn't just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.
Alain de Botton
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as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.
Alain de Botton
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I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.
Alain de Botton
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Curiosity takes ignorance seriously - and is confident enough to admit when it's in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.
Alain de Botton
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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
Alain de Botton
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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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Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
Alain de Botton
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
Alain de Botton
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The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.
Alain de Botton
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Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that's what we are.
Alain de Botton
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Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.
Alain de Botton
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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.
Alain de Botton
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I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.
Alain de Botton