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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

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
Sign
Requires
Suffering
Rather
Sense
Malice
Behaviour
Forgiveness

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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.
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Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
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We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.
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Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.
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Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.
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The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.
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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
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A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.
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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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Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
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A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available.
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The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
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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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We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).
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In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
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Good sex isn't just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
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The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.
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