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"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."
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"Any thought sequence that minimizes anxiety would get reinforced over time. The sequence would be maintained during the person's development and would be provoked in contexts where refutation of the belief might occur. So, any kind of refutation of a person's religious beliefs makes the beliefs only stronger."
"Whatever may be the position of science, whatever may be the position of philosophy, as long as there is such a thing as death in the world, as long as there is such a thing as weakness in the human heart, as long as the human heart sheds a drop of tear in weakness, there shall be a faith in God and divinity."
"I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what he was espousing, somehow he could do a more convincing job."
"Everything is energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed or mutated from one form to another."
"The entire world is surviving only due to 'beliefs', not because of 'Knowledge' (Gnan). Every human being is (living) only because of beliefs."
"If one is destined to go wrong, he will not believe the truth but will believe something else altogether."
Explore more quotes by Alain de Botton
"We never envy another's achievement more than when we know very little about how it was attained."
"We are properly ready for marriage when we are strong enough to embrace a life of frustration."
"The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury."
"Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfAated but life-enhancing thoughts."
"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."
"What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty."
"A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one's life. There is an urge to say, 'I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me."
"Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money."
"Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpredictable soil of medieval Europe, modern populations have nonetheless shown a remarkable capacity to feel that neither who they are nor what they have is quite enough."
"Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains."
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