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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
Maturity
Opinions
Inspiring
Confidence
Opinion
Many
Things

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.
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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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I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.
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Although I don't believe in God, Bach's music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
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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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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
Alain de Botton
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One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
Alain de Botton
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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
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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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Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
Alain de Botton
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Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.
Alain de Botton
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Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
Alain de Botton
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People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.
Alain de Botton
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The architects who benefit us most maybe those generous enough to lay aside their claims to genius in order to devote themselves to assembling graceful but predominantly unoriginal boxes. Architecture should have the confidence and the kindness to be a little boring.
Alain de Botton
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There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'
Alain de Botton
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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
Alain de Botton