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"To grow interested in any piece of information, we need somewhere to 'put' it, which means some way of connecting it to an issue we already now how to care about."
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"Don't be ashamed of your ignorance, be ashamed of your unwillingness to overcome it."

"We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree."

"In the arena of life, so many lessons are taught but few are taken and few are applied."

"A person is the product of his learning. What he learns and how he interprets it is what he becomes."
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."

"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."

"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."

"We don't need to be constantly reasonable in order to have good relationships; all we need to have mastered is the occasional capacity to acknowledge with good grace that we may, in one or two areas, be somewhat insane."

"Loneliness makes us more capable of true intimacy if ever better opportunities do come along. We might be isolated for now, but we'll be capable of far closer, more interesting bonds with anyone we do eventually locate."

"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."

"Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things. Maturity is the possession of coping skills: we can take in our stride things that previously would have knocked us off course. We are less fragile, less easily shocked and hence more capable of engaging with situations as they really are."

"To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity."
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