Quote

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

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
Position
Inability
Present
Aside
Lying
Heavenly
Fear
Likely
Ever
Leaving
Sheltered
Live
Memory
Admitting
Life
Lies
Intervention
Memories
Anticipation

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He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.
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Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.
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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
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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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.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.
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Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.
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Our bodies hold our minds hostage to their whims and rhythms.
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It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
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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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I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.
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Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
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Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
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We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
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Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
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Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.
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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
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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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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
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