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As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

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
Bits
Believers
Values
Normally
Better
Religions
Trying
Atheist
Things
Believer
Think
Lots
Thinking
Manage
Value

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
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The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.
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The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake.
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Love is an incurable disease. In love, there is permanent suffering. Those who love and those who are happy are not the same.
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Our bodies hold our minds hostage to their whims and rhythms.
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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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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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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.
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Memory is... similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
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Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, Don't you worry about being called names? retorted, Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?
Alain de Botton
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A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.
Alain de Botton
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The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.
Alain de Botton
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We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.
Alain de Botton
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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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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Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton