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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

Alain de Botton

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Alain de Botton
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Rattle
Cages
Bars
Start
Interesting
Really
People

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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.
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The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
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When work is not going well, it's useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers - and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
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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.
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I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.
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Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
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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.
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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
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There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
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Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
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Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.
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The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.
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I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.
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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.
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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
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The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.
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The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.
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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.
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