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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.

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
Thinking
People
Seldom
Reputation
Matters
Matter
Much
Think

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Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
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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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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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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
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The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.
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The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
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Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.
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Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
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Our bodies hold our minds hostage to their whims and rhythms.
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Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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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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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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True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
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The good parent: someone who doesn't mind, for a time, being hated by their children.
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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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When work is not going well, it's useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers - and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
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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.
Alain de Botton
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Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
Alain de Botton
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If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.
Alain de Botton