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The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.
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
Paid
Might
Much
Ancestors
Ancestor
Expecting
Perpetual
Price
Anxiety
More quotes by Alain de Botton
For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.
Alain de Botton
Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.
Alain de Botton
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
Alain de Botton
I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.
Alain de Botton
I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.
Alain de Botton
There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
Alain de Botton
...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.
Alain de Botton
People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.
Alain de Botton
The media insists on taking what someone didn't mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
Alain de Botton
We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.
Alain de Botton
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
The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
Alain de Botton
It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.
Alain de Botton
Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
Alain de Botton
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
Alain de Botton
Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.
Alain de Botton
A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
Alain de Botton
As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.
Alain de Botton
We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
Alain de Botton
To one's enemies: I hate myself more than you ever could.
Alain de Botton
