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Our sense of what is valuable will hence be radically distorted if we must perpetually condemn as tedious everything we lack, simply because we lack it.
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
Must
Tedious
Condemn
Hence
Lack
Valuable
Simply
Perpetually
Sense
Distorted
Everything
Radically
More quotes by Alain de Botton
It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.
Alain de Botton
Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as mushy.
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
Alain de Botton
People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
Alain de Botton
Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
Alain de Botton
We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.
Alain de Botton
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
Alain de Botton
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
Alain de Botton
Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
Alain de Botton
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.
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One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.
Alain de Botton
Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
Alain de Botton
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.
Alain de Botton
It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
Alain de Botton
We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.
Alain de Botton
Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.
Alain de Botton
Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
Alain de Botton
I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.
Alain de Botton
An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.
Alain de Botton
Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.
Alain de Botton
