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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: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Interesting
Really
People
Rattle
Cages
Bars
Start

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.
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As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.
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It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane.
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The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.
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There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.
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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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Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
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We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
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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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When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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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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Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance.
Alain de Botton
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What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.
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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.
Alain de Botton
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The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
Alain de Botton
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If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.
Alain de Botton
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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
Alain de Botton
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As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
Alain de Botton