Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

  Alain de Botton

  Thinking, Return, Different

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.72, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  37 Copy quote

• Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that's what we are.

  Alain de Botton

  Thinking, Opposites, Anxiety

  "Alain de Botton's Healing Arts" by Joshua Rothman, www.newyorker.com. November 19, 2013.

  87 Copy quote

• Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

  Alain de Botton

  Worry, Enjoy Life, Anxiety

  Twitter post from Oct 12, 2012

  45 Copy quote

• The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.

  Alain de Botton

  Differences, Despair, Different

  Twitter post from Jan 08, 2013

  35 Copy quote

• We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.

  Alain de Botton

  Heart, People, Special

  Twitter post from Sep 18, 2012

  18 Copy quote

• Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

  Alain de Botton

  Mind, Safe, Mental Health

  Twitter post from Sep 20, 2015

  26 Copy quote

• Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

  Alain de Botton

  Impossible, Worried, Minutes

  7 Copy quote

• I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

  Alain de Botton

  Jobs, Perfect, Excuse

  "Office affairs". Interview with Lynn Barber, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2009.

  48 Copy quote

• Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

  Alain de Botton

  Good Life, Crazy, Optimism

  Twitter post from Jan 13, 2013

  29 Copy quote

• Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

  Alain de Botton

  Thinking, Disrespect, Gazing

  12 Copy quote

• A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.

  Alain de Botton

  Suicide, Animal, Inability

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.113, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  10 Copy quote

• To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.

  Alain de Botton

  Falling In Love, Lying, Confused

  Alain de Botton (2006). “On Love: A Novel”, p.48, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  25 Copy quote

• Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

  Alain de Botton

  Knowing, Exciting, Fulfilling

  Twitter post from Nov 14, 2014

  18 Copy quote

• Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

  Alain de Botton

  Writing, Doing Nothing, Exceed

  Twitter post from Mar 26, 2015

  17 Copy quote

• The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

  Alain de Botton

  Action, Tendencies, Cures

  19 Copy quote

• The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.

  Alain de Botton

  Sexy, Feelings, Excitement

  36 Copy quote

• Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.

  Alain de Botton

  Book, Emotion, Good Book

  Twitter post from Oct 13, 2013

  9 Copy quote

• We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

  Alain de Botton

  Beautiful, Witty, Falling In Love

  Alain De Botton (1993). “On Love”, Grove/Atlantic

  60 Copy quote

• A good half of the art of living is resilience.

  Alain de Botton

  Art, Resilience, Half

  56 Copy quote

• There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.

  Alain de Botton

  Lazy, Sloth, Quoting

  Alain De Botton (1993). “Essays in Love”

  8 Copy quote

• Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

  Alain de Botton

  Confused, Ambition, Envy

  Twitter post from Sep 15, 2013

  19 Copy quote

• Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.

  Alain de Botton

  Self, Years, Careers

  Twitter post from Apr 09, 2014

  34 Copy quote

• We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

  Alain de Botton

  Beautiful, Should, Embarrassed

  "The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, Chapter VI, Consolation For Difficulties, 2000.

  16 Copy quote

• Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.

  Alain de Botton

  Smell, People, Ignored

  62 Copy quote

• People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

  Alain de Botton

  People, Interesting, Bars

  Twitter post from Apr 18, 2011

  13 Copy quote

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