Quote

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

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
Instrument
Torture
Beloved
Instruments
Becomes
Call
Demonic
Doesn
Telephone
Hands
Telephones

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The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
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Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.
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There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39
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Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
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The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
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Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.
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If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.
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Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
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The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
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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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Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don't know certain things. Yet often, they know but just don't care. So the task of serious journalism isn't just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.
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In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.
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All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.
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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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Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.
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Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.
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Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?
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