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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

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
Happiness
Else
Descendants
Worried
Creatures
Minutes
Longer
Impossible

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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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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Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
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To one's enemies: I hate myself more than you ever could.
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Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
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A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.
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A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
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Good sex isn't just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
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We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
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Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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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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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.
Alain de Botton
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The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.
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Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.
Alain de Botton
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Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
Alain de Botton
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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
Alain de Botton
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To cut out every negative root would simultaneously mean choking off positive elements that might arise from it further up the stem of the plant. We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
Alain de Botton
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The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.
Alain de Botton