Quote

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

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
Religion
Group
Social
Benefits
Human
Except
Humans
Christianity
Tends
Nothing
Groups
Compared
People
Media
Puts
Interest
Lots
Common
Interests

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How do the stems connect to the roots?' 'Where is the mist coming from?' 'Why does one tree seem darker than another?' These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
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Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that's what we are.
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Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
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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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Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence no painting ever captures the whole.
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A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.
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Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.
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It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
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The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.
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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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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.
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I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
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A good half of the art of living is resilience.
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Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?
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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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In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?
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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.
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One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
Alain de Botton