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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.

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
Fear
Disappointing
Others
Kills
Thing
Thousands
Obligation
Tiny
Turn
Turns
Bigs
Obligations

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Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.
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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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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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I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.
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Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.
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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
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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 arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.
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The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.
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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.
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You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
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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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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.
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One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
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The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where ordinary life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.
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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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