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
World
Fit
Expectations
Response
Friendship
Crucially
Travel
Moulded
Company
Responses
Keep
Temper
Others
Curiosity

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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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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Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?
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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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Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.
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Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.
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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.
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I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.
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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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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.'
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One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
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Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.
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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 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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The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work.
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Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.
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The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.
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What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.
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Year-end financial statements express a truth about office life which is no less irrefutable yet also, in the end, no less irrelevant or irritating than an evolutionary biologist's proud reminder that the purpose of existence lies in the propagation of our genes.
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People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.
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