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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.

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
Place
Heart
People
Impressed
Refuse
Hearts
Special
Keep

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.
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The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
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Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
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Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.
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To one's enemies: I hate myself more than you ever could.
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The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
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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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We need objects to remind us of the commitments we've made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we're in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.
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When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I'm basically the child of Richard Dawkins.
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In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
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The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.
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I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.
Alain de Botton
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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
Alain de Botton
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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
Alain de Botton
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Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.
Alain de Botton
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Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.
Alain de Botton
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Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread
Alain de Botton
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The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.
Alain de Botton