Being snappy is a symptom of an argument we forgot to have some way back.
Alain de BottonStichwörter: anger arguments snappiness
How quickly all the advantages of technological civilisation are wiped out by a domestic squabble. At the beginning of human history, as we struggled to light fires and to chisel fallen trees into rudimentary canoes, who could have predicted that long after we had managed to send men to the moon and aeroplanes to Australasia, we would still have trouble knowing how to tolerate ourselves, forgive our loved ones and apologise for our tantrums?
Alain de BottonThe difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.
Alain de BottonStichwörter: perspective despair hope
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.
Alain de BottonHeartache may be bad for the soul, but it's great for bookshops. It's when we are at our lowest romantic ebb that we are likely to do the bulk of our life's reading. Adolescents who can't get a date are in a uniquely privileged position: they will have the perfect chance to get grounding in world literature. There is perhaps an important connection between love and reading, there is perhaps a comparable pleasure offered by both.
A feeling of connection may be at the root of it. There are books that speak to us, no less eloquently—but more reliably—than our lovers. They prevent the morose suspicion that we do not fully belong to the human species, that we lie beyond comprehension. Our embarrassments, our sulks, our feelings of guilt, these phenomena may be conveyed on a page in a way that affords us with a sense of self-recognition. The author has located words to depict a situation we thought ourselves alone in feeling, and for a few moments, we are like two lovers on an early dinner date thrilled to discover how much they share (and unable to touch much of the seafood linguine in front of them, so busy are they fathoming the eyes opposite), we may place the book down for a second and stare at its spine with a wry smile, as if to say, "How lucky I ran into you.
The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
Alain de BottonStichwörter: self others bad-habits
Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
Alain de BottonStichwörter: suffering forgiveness understanding malice bad-behavior
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
Alain de BottonStichwörter: travel
Failure is becoming someone who needs others to fail.
Alain de BottonStichwörter: failure others interpersonal-relationships
A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
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