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"To live in modernity--an era contemporaneous with the triumph of the news--is to be constantly reminded that, thanks to science and technology, change and improvement are continuous and relentless. This is part of the reason we must keep checking the news in the first place: we might at any moment be informed of some extraordinary development that will fundamentally alter reality. Time is an arrow following a precarious, rapid and yet tantalizingly upward trajectory."
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"Most peoples are prisoners of other people's thoughts."
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Personal Development
"Your water is in the bottles, and my water is in the bucket, but we are brothers? I am collecting garbage, and you are in the bed, but we are sisters? My fingers are broken, and your hands are so soft, but we are family? Your God is like an angel, and my God is like an evil, but we are equal? My stomach is empty, and your stomach is so big, but we are humans?"
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Personal Development
"We...advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche."
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Personal Development
"Women who don't like the rules change the rules."
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Personal Development
"People are very busy; they are so busy that when they walk in the crowds they see no one, no one but themselves; they hear no voice, no voice but their own voice!"
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Personal Development
"Probably the people on the street know better than the people at home."
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Personal Development
"In a materialistic society, the dead body of a rich man's dog is regarded as a corpse; that of a poor man, a carcass."
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Personal Development
"People on corporate conveyor belts, like animals in slaughter-chutes are all part of the same big massacre of joy."
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Personal Development
"When modern sociologists talk of the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time, they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely of people who will not accommodate themselves to anything. At its worst it consists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there. And that is becoming more and more the situation...Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion."
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Personal Development
"Poverty is like a crumb that sits at a table, and starves itself to death."
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Personal Development
Explore more quotes by Alain de Botton
"We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us."
People
"A fundamental truth, is that there is simply no such thing as an inherently boring person or thing. People are only in danger of coming across as such when they either fail to understand their deeper selves or don't dare or know how to communicate them to others."
Identity
"What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married."
Marriage
"Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to."
Books
"We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to think that to be beautiful and rich is very important - just as in the Middle Ages, people were surrounded by images of religious piety."
People
"I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it."
Success
"If we were entirely sane, if madness did not have a serious grip on one side of us, other people's tragedies would hold a great deal less interest for us."
Psychology
"My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots out there who believe in Santa Claus and fairies and magic and elves, and we're not joining that nonsense."
Belief
"Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough."
Growth
"We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves."
Identity
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