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Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 6

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A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a

A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.

Alain de Botton
Travel, Information, Useless

Memory is... similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.

Alain de Botton
Memories, Anticipation, Instruments

One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.

Alain de Botton
Gratitude, Grateful, Sight

Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?

Alain de Botton
Contentment, World, Morality

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

Alain de Botton
Achievement, Doe, Affection
Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.77, Vintage

The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.

Alain de Botton
Kissing, Two, Ungrateful
Alain De Botton (1993). “Essays in Love”

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.

Alain de Botton
Beautiful, Appreciation, Pain
Alain de Botton (2007). “The Architecture of Happiness”, p.15, Penguin UK

There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.

Alain de Botton
Lonely, Book, Thinking

Curiosity takes ignorance seriously - and is confident enough to admit when it's in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.

Alain de Botton
Ignorance, Dark, Knowing

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

Alain de Botton
Laughter, Optimistic, Laughing
"Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.

Alain de Botton
Play, Judgement, Identity
Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.8, Vintage

The good parent: someone who doesn't mind, for a time, being hated by their children.

Alain de Botton
Children, Parent, Mind
Twitter post from Dec 11, 2013

Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.

Alain de Botton
Ideas, Cynical, Feelings

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

Alain de Botton
Class, Envy, Feelings
Twitter post from Jan 05, 2013

Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.

Alain de Botton
Crazy, Maturity, Knowing

That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

Alain de Botton
Night, Men, People

One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.

Alain de Botton
Age, Aging, This Too Shall Pass

It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

Alain de Botton
Motivation, Inspiration, Careers
"A kinder, gentler philosophy of success". TED Talk, www.ted.com. July, 2009.

We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

Alain de Botton
Intelligent, Insanity, Disease
Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.125, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

Alain de Botton
Hurt, Light, Looks
Alain de Botton (2012). “Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion”, p.38, Penguin UK

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.

Alain de Botton
Practice, Play, Violin

The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.

Alain de Botton
Esoteric, Blunt, Connected
Alain de Botton (2003). “The Art of Travel”, p.67, Penguin UK

There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.

Alain de Botton
Thinking, Ideas, Nervous
Alain de Botton (2012). “Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion”, p.188, Penguin UK

He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.

Alain de Botton
Depressing, Mean, Expectations

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

Alain de Botton
Communication, Ideas, Challenges
"The School of Life: An Interview With Alain de Botton". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 12, 2016.

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