Quote

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

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
Single
Handedly
Create
Contributes
Feelings
Previously
Art
Experienced
Cannot
Guides
Might
Enthusiasm
Hurriedly
Merely
Conscious
Tentatively

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The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.
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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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We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.
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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.
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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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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
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Our sense of what is valuable will hence be radically distorted if we must perpetually condemn as tedious everything we lack, simply because we lack it.
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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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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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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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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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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
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There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
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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 great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.
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If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.
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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.
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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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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
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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.
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