Alain de Botton Quotes, Revenge Quotes, Victory Quotes

Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.

5 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Revenge Quotes , Victory Quotes

.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Thinking Quotes

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Return Quotes

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.

5 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Heart Quotes

Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

5 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Reality Quotes , Optimism Quotes

Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspiring Quotes , Maturity Quotes

The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Secret Quotes

If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

5 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Lying Quotes

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hands Quotes , Telephones Quotes

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Nice Quotes , Sunset Quotes

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

5 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Media Quotes , People Quotes

Rather than teasing the buyers, we may blame the society in which they lived for setting up a situation where the purchase of ornate cabinets felt psychologically necessary and rewarding, where respect was dependent on baroque displays. Rather than a tale of greed, the history of luxury could more accurately be read as a record of emotional trauma. It is the legacy of those who have felt pressured by the disdain of others to add an extraordinary amount to their bare selves in order to signal that they too may lay a claim to love.

5 years ago

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Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Emotional Quotes , Luxury Quotes