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Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

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
Feels
Whatever
Absolute
Every
Actually
Satisfied
Yearn
Something
Desire
Resources
Poorer
Time
Cannot
However
Counted
Littles
Grow
Relative
May
Wealth
Possess
Little
Grows
Afford
Feel
Rich
Absolutes

More quotes by 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.
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Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.
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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.
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If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.
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Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.
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We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.
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Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, Don't you worry about being called names? retorted, Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked 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 virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
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What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
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It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.
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What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
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We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.
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Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.
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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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For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.
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It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.
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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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