A Quote by Alain de Botton

What I do know from my life is the phenomenon of saying, 'This is too small a thing to argue about', but then nevertheless finding oneself in that argument. — © Alain de Botton
What I do know from my life is the phenomenon of saying, 'This is too small a thing to argue about', but then nevertheless finding oneself in that argument.
I wrote my own first book about the defense of television as an art form in 1992. It was harder to make the argument then. Now it seems absolutely a given. You can argue about when the Platinum Age Of Television begins, but I don't think that anybody can argue that it's not here.
Learning to explain phenomena such that one continues to be fascinated by the failure of one's explanations creates a continuing cycle of thinking, that is the crux of intelligence. It isn't that one person knows more than another, then. In as sense, it is important to know less than the next person, or at least to be certain of less, thus enabling more curiosity and less explaining away because one has again encountered a well-known phenomenon. The less you know the more you can find out about, and finding out for oneself is what intelligence is all about.
Telling a true story about personal experience is not just a matter of being oneself, or even or finding oneself. It is also a matter of choosing oneself.
I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure.
Psychology is action, not thinking about oneself. We continue to shape our personality all our life. To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion.
If we're not there making the argument then the cultural gulf that Republicans try to exploit saying, "Ah, these city slickers: they're all looking down on you, they don't care about you. They're just trying to help out their various special interest constituencies," that argument ends up being successful.
I've been asked to do small parts in films, but you know, what I've learned in the 12 Steps of Recovery is that for me, being a public person, is not a very healthy thing. There's too many drugs, too many jets, too many girls, too many parties. It's just not my lifestyle. I'm 58 years old. A good round of golf is about as exciting as my life gets.
Right then, I wanted to go back in time and relive every moment with him. One more secret smile, one more shared laugh. One more electric kiss. Finding him was like finding someone I didn't know I was searching for. He’d come into my life too late, and now was leaving too soon. I remembered him telling he’d give up everything for me. He already had.
The world somehow is always the same. The only thing that can improve is the individual life. One can live a good life. One can give life a meaning. Either by drinking oneself to death or by painting oneself to death or by loving oneself to death.
I love you," I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don't know why I didn't say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.
Life is all about change. We cling to what we know and what we have, and then we lose it, and then we regret not having it and try to replace it by finding and changing to something else.
The strangest thing about the low quality of Internet argument is that effective argument isn't really so difficult. Sure, not everyone can be Clarence Darrow, but anyone who wants to be at least competent at argument can do it.
The strangest thing about the low quality of Internet argument is that effective argument isnt really so difficult. Sure, not everyone can be Clarence Darrow, but anyone who wants to be at least competent at argument can do it.
Normally, I'd believe that the saying 'There's no small parts, only small actors' is a load of crock because, more often than not, actors relegated to the small-part category stay in 'Who was that guy from that thing' purgatory - however, '90s sitcom 'Friends' proved that the saying is true.
Spiritual beings do not sweat life's small stuff. They also know that most of what drives us crazy in life is small stuff. The only thing that isn't small stuff is the reason you're on earth in the first place: to find that portion of the world's lost heart that only you can ransom with your love and authentic gifts and then return it, so that all of us can experience Wholeness.
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