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Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 2

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Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

Alain de Botton
Confused, Ambition, Envy
Twitter post from Sep 15, 2013

Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

Alain de Botton
Knowing, Exciting, Fulfilling
Twitter post from Nov 14, 2014

Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.

Alain de Botton
Book, Emotion, Good Book
Twitter post from Oct 13, 2013

Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

Alain de Botton
Writing, Self, Careers
Twitter post from May 28, 2013

People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

Alain de Botton
People, Forgiving, Goes On
Twitter post from Mar 13, 2015

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

Alain de Botton
Jobs, Perfect, Excuse
"Office affairs". Interview with Lynn Barber, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2009.

The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.

Alain de Botton
Differences, Despair, Different
Twitter post from Jan 08, 2013

Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.

Alain de Botton
Believe, Divorce, Unhappy

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

Alain de Botton
Writing, Doing Nothing, Exceed
Twitter post from Mar 26, 2015

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

Alain de Botton
Good Life, Crazy, Optimism
Twitter post from Jan 13, 2013

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

Alain de Botton
Action, Tendencies, Cures

We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.

Alain de Botton
Forgiving, Blame, Mood
Twitter post from Aug 12, 2014

To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.

Alain de Botton
Falling In Love, Lying, Confused
Alain de Botton (2006). “On Love: A Novel”, p.48, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

Alain de Botton
Genius, Structure, Inner Life

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Alain de Botton
Worry, Enjoy Life, Anxiety
Twitter post from Oct 12, 2012

Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.

Alain de Botton
Self, Years, Careers
Twitter post from Apr 09, 2014

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

Alain de Botton
Real, Judgement, Intuition
Twitter post from Feb 05, 2013

Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

Alain de Botton
Sadness, Feelings, Weakness

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

Alain de Botton
Book, Glasses, Lessons
"Alain de Botton: How Proust Can Change Your Life". bigthink.com. 2017.

A good half of the art of living is resilience.

Alain de Botton
Art, Resilience, Half

There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.

Alain de Botton
Significant Things, People, May
Alain de Botton (2012). “How Proust Can Change Your Life”, p.94, Pan Macmillan

What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

Alain de Botton
Tiny, Disappointing, Bigs

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

Alain de Botton
People, Interesting, Bars
Twitter post from Apr 18, 2011

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

Alain de Botton
Inspirational, Obvious Things, Too Late

The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

Alain de Botton
Stupid, Ideas, People
Twitter post from Nov 02, 2014

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