Quote

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: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Something
Desire
Resources
Poorer
Time
Cannot
However
Counted
Littles
Grow
Relative
May
Wealth
Possess
Little
Grows
Afford
Feel
Rich
Absolutes
Feels
Whatever
Absolute
Every
Actually
Satisfied
Yearn

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As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.
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Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
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Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.
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After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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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 genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.
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One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
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It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
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I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.
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to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap
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It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.
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Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
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Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.
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One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.
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as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.
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The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.
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So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.
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Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
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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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We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.
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