Quote

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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Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Others
Curiosity
World
Fit
Expectations
Response
Friendship
Crucially
Travel
Moulded
Company
Responses
Keep
Temper

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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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 keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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A good half of the art of living is resilience.
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Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.
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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
Alain de Botton
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To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.
Alain de Botton
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We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
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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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.
Alain de Botton
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We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).
Alain de Botton
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Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
Alain de Botton
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Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.
Alain de Botton
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
Alain de Botton
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If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.
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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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
Alain de Botton
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Although I don't believe in God, Bach's music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
Alain de Botton
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The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
Alain de Botton