Quote

Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.

Alain de Botton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Minds
Priorities
Distract
Influence
Task
Accurately
Sound
Sounds
Susceptible
Voice
Souls
Drown
May
Satisfied
Faint
Soul
Tasks
External
Emitted
Mind
Careful
Require
Arduous
Telling
Voices
Naming

More quotes by Alain de Botton

Image
Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone they're for all of us.
Alain de Botton
Image
I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.
Alain de Botton
Image
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
Alain de Botton
Image
We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.
Alain de Botton
Image
The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.
Alain de Botton
Image
Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
Alain de Botton
Image
Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.
Alain de Botton
Image
You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them.
Alain de Botton
Image
We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.
Alain de Botton
Image
It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
Alain de Botton
Image
When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
Alain de Botton
Image
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.
Alain de Botton
Image
True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
Alain de Botton
Image
The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.
Alain de Botton
Image
It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.
Alain de Botton
Image
At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
Alain de Botton
Image
Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
Alain de Botton
Image
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
Alain de Botton
Image
The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
Alain de Botton
Image
The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.
Alain de Botton