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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

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
Used
Photography
Substitute
Done
Conscious
Assured
World
Taking
Substitutes
Seeing
Medium
Supplement
Attention
Mediums
Supplements
Rather
Paying
Employing
Less
Possession
Previously
Faith
Active
Automatically

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.
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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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Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.
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A good half of the art of living is resilience.
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.
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We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.
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A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.
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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).
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The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.
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Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
Alain de Botton
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It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming... If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept more graciously the great, unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.
Alain de Botton
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The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.
Alain de Botton
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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.
Alain de Botton
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True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
Alain de Botton
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Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
Alain de Botton
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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
Alain de Botton
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My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
Alain de Botton