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The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

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
Normal
Wells
Well
Think
Thinking
People

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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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Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.
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True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
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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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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
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Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.
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Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
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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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You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.
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As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
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Our bodies hold our minds hostage to their whims and rhythms.
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People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
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How do the stems connect to the roots?' 'Where is the mist coming from?' 'Why does one tree seem darker than another?' These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
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Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
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Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.
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...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.
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It should not be Illiers-Combray that we visit: a genuine homage to Proust would be to look at our world through his eyes, not look at his world through our eyes.
Alain de Botton