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Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 14

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It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a

It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.

Alain de Botton
Achievement, Challenges, Ruins
Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.218, Penguin UK

The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.

Alain de Botton
God, Soul, World
"TED | Alain deBotton: Atheism 2.0 – Notes & Review". vialogue.wordpress.com. January 22, 2012.

Despite its maddeningly vague, inarticulate form, anxiety is almost always trying to tell you something useful and apposite.

Alain de Botton
Always Trying, Anxiety, Form
Twitter post from Apr 22, 2013

We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

Alain de Botton
Home, Dwelling, Islands
"On anticipation". www.theguardian.com. May 21, 2002.

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

Alain de Botton
Anxiety, Shifting, Triggers

We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

Alain de Botton
Envy, Trying, Diaries
Twitter post from Dec 29, 2012

It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.

Alain de Botton
Lonely, Book, Should
Alain de Botton (2003). “The Art of Travel”, p.28, Penguin UK

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

Alain de Botton
God, Soul, Trying

According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

Alain de Botton
Love, Men, Portraits

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

Alain de Botton
Running, Writing, Envy

One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds.

Alain de Botton
Giving Up, Home, Reality

It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.

Alain de Botton
Would Be, World, Ugly
"The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work". Book by Alain de Botton, 2009.

The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.

Alain de Botton
Country, May, Developing Countries
Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.40, Penguin UK

We might have been ready to offer sympathy, but in actuality there were stronger reasons to want to congratulate her for having found such a powerful motive to feel sad. We should have envied her for having located someone without whom she so firmly felt she could not survive, beyond the gate let along in a bare student bedroom in a suburb of Rio. If she had been able to view her situation from a sufficient distance, she might have been able to recognise this as one of the high points in her life.

Alain de Botton
Powerful, Distance, Views

There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

Alain de Botton
Artist, Greatness, Landscape

Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.

Alain de Botton
Travel, Journey, Might
Alain de Botton (2003). “The Art of Travel”, p.66, Penguin UK

A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.

Alain de Botton
Art, Majority, Would Be
Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.156, Vintage

It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane.

Alain de Botton
Sublime, Religion, Landscape

Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.

Alain de Botton
Reality, Abbreviations, Artistic
Alain de Botton (2003). “The Art of Travel”, p.13, Penguin UK

Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

Alain de Botton
Photography, Attention, Done

How do the stems connect to the roots?' 'Where is the mist coming from?' 'Why does one tree seem darker than another?' These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.

Alain de Botton
Roots, Tree, Doe

Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.

Alain de Botton
Reality, Choices, Painting

Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.

Alain de Botton
Fighting, Order, Alcohol
Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.28, Penguin UK

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 Botton
Book, Giving, Feelings

For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.

Alain de Botton
Understanding, Laziness, Bob
"The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work". Book by Alain de Botton, 2009.

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