Alain de Botton Quotes

Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.

Alain de Botton

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Quotes to Explore

• When you are young, hone your craft and write shorter pieces instead of novels, because it's really hard to finish a novel.

  

  Laini Taylor
  • Young
  • Finish
  • Craft

• I believe that if you eat well, you work even better.

  

  Ferran Adria
  • Work
  • Believe
  • I Believe

• There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

  

  Samuel Butler
  • Thought
  • Nothing
  • Absence

• I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college.

  

  Maajid Nawaz
  • World
  • Mind
  • College

• I remember 'Def Comedy Jam' being a big deal and kids talking about it in school, but it was never, 'I want to do that.'

  

  Hannibal Buress
  • School
  • Kids
  • Remember

• Racism is everywhere - the older generations in Malaysia still say things like, 'She's darker-skinned; maybe don't marry her,' and it's very judgmental. A lot of girls do try to get fairness cream to lighten their skin, and I'm against all of that.

  

  Yuna
  • Racism
  • Generations
  • Fairness

• We firmly believe the environmental issues cannot be addressed without extensive public participation, but people need to be informed before they can get involved.

  

  Ma Jun
  • People
  • Believe
  • Environmental

• Imagine if I'd said, 'I have to be the best actress - I want that and nothing else.' I never would have directed. I never would have produced. I never would have done a beauty line. I would have just worried about getting a job or been frustrated that I wasn't getting the job that I wanted. I was ready to be a businesswoman.

  

  Salma Hayek
  • Done
  • Job
  • Best

• The trouble with conservatives is that too many of them come to Washington thinking they are going to drain the swamp, only to discover that Washington is a hot tub.

  

  M. Stanton Evans
  • Thinking
  • Trouble
  • Discover

• I don't program or code or anything like that.

  

  Rand Paul
  • Like
  • Anything
  • Code

• I guess what I like is mostly country & western or else stuff that has a real blues feel to it.

  

  Sam Shepard
  • Country
  • Real
  • Blues

• Trying on pants is one of the most humiliating things a man can suffer that doesn't involve a woman.

  

  Larry David
  • Trying
  • Man
  • Woman

• Are we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my family is.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Family
  • Breakup

• It just gripes me hollow, the way God always sneaks in to take the credit.

  

  Orson Scott Card
  • God

• No government functions without the grease of corruption.

  

  Carlos Fuentes
  • Grease

• I walked into a gunfight with a knife to kill you, and cut you so fast when your blood spilled it was still blue.

  

  Eminem
  • Blue

• In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence.

  

  Alfred North Whitehead

• At 83 Shaw's mind was perhaps not quite as good as it used to be, but it was still better than anyone else's.

  

  Alexander Woollcott
  • Good
  • Mind

• Political parties need to look at the different kinds of support that people may need, suited to their way of life, and provide cost-effective solutions.

  

  Charles Kennedy
  • People
  • Life
  • Different

• I think Facebook is an extraordinarily important part of the Internet ecosystem, and having a robust presence there is a critical part of any brand (or company's) strategy.

  

  John Battelle
  • Important

• Why couldn't the world that concerns us- be a fiction? And if somebody asked, 'but to be a fiction there surely belongs an author?'- couldn't one answer simply: 'Why? Doesn't this "belongs" perhaps belong to the fiction, too?'

  

  Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Author
  • Fiction
  • Answer

• I want a future where my children feel safe and appreciated and proud to be who they are. My heart is one with all the Arab Spring heroes, no matter how small they think their role is. I know they believe, like me, that we are working for a world whereby an Arab can live with the other in a respectful and dignified way.

  

  Tawakkol Karman
  • World
  • Believe
  • Live

• Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.

  

  Reinhold Niebuhr
  • Spring
  • Theory
  • Groups

• Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.

  

  Alain de Botton
  • Spring