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Alain de Botton Quotes about Pain

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We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.

We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.

Alain de Botton
Pain, Thinking, Suffering
Alain De Botton (1997). “How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel”, Pantheon

Must being in love always mean being in pain?

Alain de Botton
Pain, Mean, Being In Love
Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.123, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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

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

Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.

Alain de Botton
Pain, Insomnia, Injury
Twitter post from Sep 18, 2012

No one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment.

Alain de Botton
Art, Pain, Envy

In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge.

Alain de Botton
Art, Pain, Philosophy
Alain de Botton (2001). “The Consolations of Philosophy”, p.188, Penguin UK

Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.

Alain de Botton
Hurt, Giving Up, Pain
Alain de Botton (2006). “On Love: A Novel”, p.45, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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