#status

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#anxiety #desire #happiness #materialism #possessions

Sometimes people think you’re smart if you question the status quo, if nothing else. ↗

— Craig Ferguson

#misconceptions #status-quo #intelligence

Single is not a status, it is a word that describes a person who is strong enough to live and enjoy life without depending on others. ↗

— prixie

#describe #enjoy #enough #life #live

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#status #life

One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be an idiocy, because it has been able to appeal to a majority. ↗

— Nicolas Chamfort

#status-anxiety #life

Money can't buy happiness but it can buy a huge yacht that sails right next to it. ↗

— David Lee Roth

#images #money #moral-decay #status #values

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#status #nature

A person can't help their birth. ↗

— William Makepeace Thackeray

#vanity

Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo. ↗

— Karl Barth

#god #ideology #nothing #quo #revelation

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#anxiety #definitely #essentially #exists #humiliating