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By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world.
Alain de Botton
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Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
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Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
World
Local
Identities
Prejudice
Travelling
Across
Frontiers
Identity
Prejudices
Citizens
Exchange
Constraining
Imagination
Invited
Montaigne
Less
Division
Horseback
Self
Locals
Induced
More quotes by Alain de Botton
We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
Alain de Botton
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.
Alain de Botton
We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.
Alain de Botton
We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.
Alain de Botton
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.
Alain de Botton
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.
Alain de Botton
It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.
Alain de Botton
Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
Alain de Botton
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
Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.
Alain de Botton
The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.
Alain de Botton
Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
Alain de Botton
The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
Alain de Botton
Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone they're for all of us.
Alain de Botton
A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
Alain de Botton
Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.
Alain de Botton
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.
Alain de Botton
If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.
Alain de Botton
Once I began to consider everything as being of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value.
Alain de Botton
Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
Alain de Botton
