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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.

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
Confidence
Opinion
Many
Things
Maturity
Opinions
Inspiring

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
Alain de Botton
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A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.
Alain de Botton
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To cut out every negative root would simultaneously mean choking off positive elements that might arise from it further up the stem of the plant. We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
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We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.
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It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds to be the purpose of work.
Alain de Botton
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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
Alain de Botton
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I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
Alain de Botton
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Our bodies hold our minds hostage to their whims and rhythms.
Alain de Botton
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We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.
Alain de Botton
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When work is not going well, it's useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers - and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
Alain de Botton
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The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
Alain de Botton
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For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.
Alain de Botton
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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
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Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
Alain de Botton
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We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.
Alain de Botton
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
Alain de Botton
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The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where ordinary life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.
Alain de Botton
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A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton