It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.
Alain De BottonRead
Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the difference between wanting improved circumstances and the willingness to improve oneself.
Alain De Botton's quote points out a common human tendency: while many aspire for a better life characterized by external improvements such as wealth or status, few are committed to personal growth and becoming a better version of themselves. This reflects the idea that true fulfillment and quality of life stem not just from material success, but from nurturing one's character and values.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development.
It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.
Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread
The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.
Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.
The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.
It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.
Great God! What have I turned into? What right have you people to clutter up my life, steal my time, probe my soul, suckle my thoughts, have me for your companion, confidant, and information bureau? What do you take me for? Am I an entertainer on salary, required every evening to play an intellectual farce under your stupid noses? Am I a slave, bought and paid for, to crawl on my belly in front of you idlers and lay at your feet all that I do and all that I know?
But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail
Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get.
How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?
...True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length.
We know a thing by its opposite corollary; hot by having experienced cold; good by having decided what is bad; love by hate.
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