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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.

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
Ignored
Indifferent
Fragile
Mortals
Boil
Ego
Ache
Vast
Complaints
Universe
Belly
Many
Mortal

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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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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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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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
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If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.
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You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
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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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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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We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
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Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.
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We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.
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These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.
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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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The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.
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I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.
Alain de Botton
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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We need objects to remind us of the commitments we've made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we're in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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