Alain de Botton Quotes, Art Quotes, Imagination Quotes

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Kissing Quotes , Two Quotes

It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Important Quotes , Benefits Quotes

Symons remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms - what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true calling.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

We should not be frightened by appearances.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Appearance Quotes , Should Quotes

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Wisdom Quotes , Taken Quotes

Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Optimistic Quotes , Frustration Quotes

Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Revenge Quotes , Intelligent Quotes

Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter - pleasurable, intoxicating, even - with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Men Quotes , Dust Quotes

A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Achievement Quotes , Ordinary Quotes

According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Quotes , Men Quotes

Despite its maddeningly vague, inarticulate form, anxiety is almost always trying to tell you something useful and apposite.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Always Trying Quotes , Anxiety Quotes

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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Heart Quotes

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Crazy Quotes , Maturity Quotes

What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Vision Quotes , Use Quotes

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pain Quotes , Envy 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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