Alain de Botton Quotes, Hate Quotes, Compassion Quotes

Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hate Quotes , Compassion Quotes

Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Goal Quotes , Anxiety Quotes

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Real Quotes , Judgement Quotes

It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Home Quotes , Self Quotes

Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Distance Quotes , Curiosity Quotes

I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , Fiction Quotes

It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Self Hatred Quotes

There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Simple Quotes , Thinking Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Ideas Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Class Quotes , Envy Quotes

By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Self Quotes , Imagination Quotes

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Moving Quotes , Journey Quotes

We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , People Quotes , Looks Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hurt Quotes , Giving Up Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Emotion Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Art Quotes , Knowing Quotes

The real issue is not whether baking biscuits is meaningful, but the extent to which the activity can seem to be so after it has been continuously stretched and subdivided across five thousand lives.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Meaningful Quotes , Real Quotes

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?

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Witty Quotes

A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Travel Quotes , Giving Quotes