A Quote by Alain de Botton

The problem with airports is that we go there when we need to catch a plane - and because it's so difficult to find the way to the gate, we tend not to look around at our surroundings.
Before one goes through the gate one may not be aware there is a gate One may think there is a gate to go through and look a long time for it without finding it One may find it and it may not open If it opens one may be through it As one goes through it one sees that the gate one went through was the self that went through it no one went through a gate there was no gate to go through no one ever found a gate no one ever realized there was never a gate
What you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences. When we come together, we don't come together as Baptists or Methodists. You don't catch hell 'cause you're a Baptist, and you don't catch hell 'cause you're a Methodist... You don't catch hell because you're a Democrat or a Republican. You don't catch hell because you're a Mason or an Elk. And you sure don't catch hell 'cause you're an American; 'cause if you was an American, you wouldn't catch no hell. You catch hell 'cause you're a Black man. You catch hell, all of us catch hell, for the same reason.
Refugees tend to avoid planes, airports and fake passports, even though flying may appear to be the most obvious way to flee. For one thing, security procedures at airports are far stricter than at land borders.
I heard somebody open and shut the gate to the barn lot, but I didn't look around. If I didn't look around it would not be true that somebody had opened the gate with the creaky hinges, and that is a wonderful principle for a man to get hold of... What you don't know know don't hurt you, for it ain't real. They called that Idealism in my book I had when I was in college, and after I got hold of that principle I became an Idealist... If you are an Idealist it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway.
A person has already made the effort once they open a paper or turn on the news. They want to know what's going on in the world around them. That, in itself, shows they care. But the problem is, most people say, 'That's terrible,' and then move on. Because they find it too difficult to look at.
Here then is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.
The only way we get better is to look in the mirror, assess our strengths and weaknesses, and figure out where we need to go. But if we run around saying, we're number one, we're number one, and we're not, that doesn't help us get where we need to go.
I always save a huge book for a flight, because then you read it at both airports and on the plane and by the time you get home you're a quarter of the way through and it doesn't feel so unmanageable any more.
Go on thinking that you don't need to be read and you'll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won't feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.
We depend on our surroundings obliquely to embody the moods and ideas we respect and then to remind us of them. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need โ€” but are at constant risk of forgetting what we need โ€” within. We turn to wallpaper, benches, paintings and streets to staunch the disappearance of our true selves.
If you look at America now as a giant ship, before we can turn it around and go the other way, we've got to stop. This has been our problem all along. We haven't really advanced anything we believe.
In mathematical quarters, the regular division of the plane has been considered theoretically. ... [Mathematicians] have opened the gate leading to an extensive domain, but they have not entered this domain themselves. By their very nature they are more interested in the way in which the gate is opened than in the garden lying behind it.
Yes, I have had difficult times on court and at certain tournaments but you need to forget about it and go forward because that's the way it works in our world.
When you are solving a difficult problem re-ask the problem so that your solution helps you learn faster. Find a faster way to fail, recover, and try again. If the problem you are trying to solve involves creating a magnum opus, you are solving the wrong problem.
The hardest thing to find in life is balance - especially the more success you have, the more you look to the other side of the gate. What do I need to stay grounded, in touch, in love, connected, emotionally balanced? Look within yourself.
They told me I would find it difficult to find work because of the way that I look and they weren't wrong. [laughs] I thought, "Well, I'll prove you wrong" because I genuinely believed that the world was a more diverse place than they perhaps viewed it to be.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!