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Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

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
Lives
Wiser
Change
Agents
Would
Travel
Simply
Asks
Rather
Hope
Wish

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.
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I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.
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Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.
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Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?
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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.
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Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?
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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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Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
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The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
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What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.
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We should not be frightened by appearances.
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We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.
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Responsible for wrapping the iron fist of authority in its velvet glove is Jane Axtell, head of the accountancy firm's Human Resources department.
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Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.
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Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
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Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.
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The only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things
Alain de Botton
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Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
Alain de Botton
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The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
Alain de Botton
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Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone they're for all of us.
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