Quote

We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

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
Keep
Next
Moments
Covert
Trying
Diary
Diaries
Guides
Envy
Careful

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I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.
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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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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.
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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.
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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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The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.
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There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
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It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane.
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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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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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The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
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To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.
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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
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It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds to be the purpose of work.
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True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
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I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
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Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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