Quote

Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.

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
Trying
Sleep
Something
Feeling
Unimaginative
Way
Fact
Endeavoring
Love
Feelings
Excites
Think
Facts
Purchase
Thinking
Beautiful
Dealing
Someone
Longing
May
Response

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It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.
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Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.
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The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where ordinary life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.
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On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.
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Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.
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We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.
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Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
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The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
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The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake.
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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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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'
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Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.
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After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
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Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.
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The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.
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Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.
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I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.
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Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.
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