Quote

Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

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
Draw
Draws
Compassion
Saying
Rather
Terrifies
Hate
Harbinger
Might
Catastrophe
Mess

More quotes by Alain de Botton

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The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.
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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.
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Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
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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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Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.
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It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.
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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.
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Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.
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Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.
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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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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
Alain de Botton
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It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.
Alain de Botton
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For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.
Alain de Botton
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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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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.
Alain de Botton
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On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.
Alain de Botton
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The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.
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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
Alain de Botton