Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing. Alain de Botton More Quotes by Alain de Botton More Quotes From 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 land war two We tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it. ... Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it." That's what all religions tell us: "Get on your knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day." Otherwise our minds are like sieves. Alain de Botton mind believe needs The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones...If...we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought. Alain de Botton dimensions order ideas We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition. Alain de Botton phrases definitions justice The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible. Alain de Botton fascination secret book 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 sound philosophy book Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation. Alain de Botton serious trouble world Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself. Alain de Botton giving-up pain hurt What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so. Alain de Botton worry numbers people Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while. Alain de Botton storm rain giving Most good thinking has its origin in fear. Alain de Botton good-thinking thinking Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities - and we should take care. Alain de Botton bombarded-by priorities successful I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed. Alain de Botton suggestions modern sex The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how hard they work. Alain de Botton successful people thinking The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life. Alain de Botton inner-life structure genius Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'. Alain de Botton hate compassion might In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, "Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?" Alain de Botton successful two years It should not be Illiers-Combray that we visit: a genuine homage to Proust would be to look at our world through his eyes, not look at his world through our eyes. Alain de Botton our-world eye would-be 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. Alain de Botton naivety use writing One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds. Alain de Botton giving-up home reality
