Alain de Botton Quotes
I … thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.
Quotes to Explore
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I know what to do and I go and execute.
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I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
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Fame has become this obsession for people, which kind of creeps me out.
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There are no benefactors in Canada because there is no incentive.
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I want to thank all of the fans and media who made playing in the NFL such a wonderful experience. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of them.
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The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.
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Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them.
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Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
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When I was in high school in the early 1970s, we knew we were running out of oil; we knew that easy sources were being capped; we knew that diversifying would be much better; we knew that there were terrible dictators and horrible governments that we were enriching who hated us. We knew all that and we did really nothing.
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The last thing I would ever do is try to become a network programmer.
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The things that have really gotten confusing to me is how you balance the desires of your publishers to produce things on a schedule, and people are always sort of giving you ideas on what you should follow up with or how you should proceed next and things like that.
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Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.
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It might be, it could be... it is! A home run!
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In very simple language, Morrie always seems to be able to explain something that other people would take a chapter for, you know.
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I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
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I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism.
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Agatha Christie holds special personal memories for me because my mum, a television producer called Pat Sandys, had been the first person to persaude the Agatha Christie estate to put one of her stories on T.V.
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I'm English, and I started off as a songwriter, so I can't really escape that - it's there.
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Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.
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I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around.
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My music is the chicken soup kind. I want people to get a good feeling in their soul from these songs. Roots rock, heartland rock... whatever you want to call it is OK with me.
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'I gather you were all too busy killing each other.''That’s a fairly reductive summary of our history, but I don’t suppose it’s too far from the truth.'
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Toughest decision was early in my presidency when I ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. As somebody who had run to end a large troop presence overseas.
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I … thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.
