The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “Alain de Botton”

Alain de Botton on Infatuation
Alain de Botton on Infatuation

“The only people who can still strike us as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.”

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Alain de Botton on What Makes a Good Communicator and the Difficult Art of Listening in Intimate Relationships
Alain de Botton on What Makes a Good Communicator and the Difficult Art of Listening in Intimate Relationships

“What makes people good communicators is, in essence, an ability not to be fazed by the more problematic or offbeat aspects of their own characters.”

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What Higher Consciousness Really Means, How We Attain It, and What It Does for the Human Spirit
What Higher Consciousness Really Means, How We Attain It, and What It Does for the Human Spirit

“At such moments, the world reveals itself as quite different: a place of suffering and misguided effort … but also a place of tenderness and longing, beauty, and touching vulnerability. “

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What Is Philosophy For? A Beautiful Animated Manifesto for Undoing Our Unwisdom, Cultivating Our Character, and Gaining Perspective
What Is Philosophy For? A Beautiful Animated Manifesto for Undoing Our Unwisdom, Cultivating Our Character, and Gaining Perspective

“The points at which our unwisdom bites and messes up our lives are multiple and urgently need attention, right now.”

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What Books Do for the Human Spirit: The Four Psychological Functions of Great Literature
What Books Do for the Human Spirit: The Four Psychological Functions of Great Literature

“Writers open our hearts and minds, and give us maps to our own selves.”

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Why Our Partners Drive Us Mad: Alain de Botton to the Central Challenge of Human Relationships and How to Heal It
Why Our Partners Drive Us Mad: Alain de Botton to the Central Challenge of Human Relationships and How to Heal It

“We believe we are seeking happiness in love, but what we are really after is familiarity.”

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Alain de Botton on Love, Vulnerability, and the Psychological Paradox of the Sulk
Alain de Botton on Love, Vulnerability, and the Psychological Paradox of the Sulk

“If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun.”

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Proust on What Art Does for the Soul and How to Stop Letting Habit Blunt Our Aliveness
Proust on What Art Does for the Soul and How to Stop Letting Habit Blunt Our Aliveness

“Artists are people who strip habit away and return life to its deserved glory.”

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Friedrich Nietzsche on Why a Fulfilling Life Requires Embracing Rather than Running from Difficulty
Friedrich Nietzsche on Why a Fulfilling Life Requires Embracing Rather than Running from Difficulty

A century and a half before our modern fetishism of failure, a seminal philosophical case for its value.

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How Art Can Save Your Soul
How Art Can Save Your Soul

“Art can be a source of help with our problems — our innermost problems — the problems of the soul.”

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