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Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?

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
Drawn
Remarkable
Expensive
Joy
Bring
Cannot
Things
Powerfully

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.
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It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.
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Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
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I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.
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The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.
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Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
Alain de Botton
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The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.
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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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Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.
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I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.
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It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.
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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.
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The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
Alain de Botton
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Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.
Alain de Botton
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Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
Alain de Botton
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There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
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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.
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.
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We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.
Alain de Botton
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The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
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