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"He was a volatile mixture of confidence and vulnerability. He could deliver extended monologues on professional matters, then promptly stop in his tracks to peer inquisitively into his guest's eyes for signs of boredom or mockery, being intelligent enough to be unable fully to believe in his own claims to significance. He might, in a past life, have been a particularly canny and sharp-tongued royal advisor."
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"She has a serene, glowing disposition. She looks at you and the rest of the world through the eyes of a lynx and is always mysterious, possibly because she always harbours those hidden laughs just beneath her lips. She's always ready to laugh."

"I can eat you at breakfast, not because I am a monster; it is only because you are too cute and yummy."

"Humanism is not a single character. It is a magnificent blend of various emotional and behavioral traits that are unique to the human mind."

"Being bigheaded can be as irritating and as dangerous as being small-minded."

"A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles."

"I cannot do anything fake; that is why even when I sleep with a prostitute, she falls in love with me."

"Since we are all unique and individual, being cognizant of different personality styles will help you better recognize where others are coming from to minimize barriers, build trust, and catapult your newfound communication skills into meaningful connections. The savvy socializer knows this all."

"Character of any person is the aggregate of his or her conscientious tendencies - the sum total of the knacks of the civilized part of the mind."

"Confidence, is like a belt worn around the waist. Wear it too tight, you come off cocky and arrogant, wear it too loose, you come off timid and a walk over, but wear it fit and snug, it will uphold you in every step of the way."

"We might respect a serious person with an austere and rigid personality, but we adore merry, kindhearted, and artistic people."
Explore more quotes by Alain de Botton

"In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well."

"It is according to how we are able to answer the question of what we do (normally the first enquiry we will have to field in any new acquaintance) that the quality of our reception is likely to be decided."

"Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities."

"Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws."

"I'm fascinated by Comte's clear-eyed analysis of what was wrong with modern society, which is that you've got industrial capitalism on one side and romantic love on the other. Those, along with non-instrumental art, are supposed to get you through the day?"

"What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through the sale of some astonishingly small and only distantly meaningful things, a civilisation torn and unable sensibly to adjudicate between the worthwhile ends to which money might be put and the often morally trivial and destructive mechanisms of its generation."

"It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships."
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