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Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 5

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Not everyone is worth listening to.

Not everyone is worth listening to.

Alain de Botton
Listening
"The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, 2000.

The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.

Alain de Botton
Art, Knowing, Speak
"The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, 2000.

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

Alain de Botton
Hands, Telephones, Beloved
Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.20, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.

Alain de Botton
Light, Smell, Childhood
Twitter post from Jun 13, 2014

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

Alain de Botton
Love, Two, Adults
Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.5, Vintage

I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.

Alain de Botton
Powerful, Emotional, Thinking
"Office affairs". Interview with Lynn Barber, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2009.

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

Alain de Botton
Smartphones, Interesting, Challenges
Twitter post from Jan 05, 2013

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

Alain de Botton
People, Tendencies, Unfortunate

Although I don't believe in God, Bach's music shows me what a love of God must feel like.

Alain de Botton
Believe, God Love, Bach's Music

In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

Alain de Botton
Love, Princess, Men
Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.52, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success. This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convince others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope!

Alain de Botton
Good Life, Views, Skills

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

Alain de Botton
Art, World, Devotion
"What art museums should learn from Christianity". Article by Alain de Botton, www.abc.net.au. February 22, 2012.

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust's therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

Alain de Botton
Looks, May, Proust
Alain de Botton (2012). “How Proust Can Change Your Life”, p.153, Pan Macmillan

The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.

Alain de Botton
Practice, Ideas, Everyday

An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.

Alain de Botton
Couple, People, Important
Twitter post from May 13, 2013

There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

Alain de Botton
Real, Cards, World

It is striking how much more seriously we are likely to be taken after we have been dead a few centuries.

Alain de Botton
Taken, Century, Has Beens
"The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, 2000.

True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.

Alain de Botton
Majority, Stem, Reasoning
"The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, 2000.

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.

Alain de Botton
Motivation, Believe, Inspiration

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.

Alain de Botton
People, Missing, Being Weird
Twitter post from Jul 14, 2017

Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.

Alain de Botton
Sex, Believe, Rejection
Alain de Botton, The School of Life (2012). “How To Think More About Sex”, p.135, Pan Macmillan

In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.

Alain de Botton
Pain, Envy, Anxiety
Alain de Botton (2001). “The Consolations of Philosophy”, p.202, Penguin UK

Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.

Alain de Botton
Voice, Priorities, Soul
Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.190, Vintage

After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

Alain de Botton
Men, Age, Strive

People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.

Alain de Botton
People, Important, Identity

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