Alain de Botton Quotes, Happiness Quotes, Quests Quotes

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Happiness Quotes , Quests Quotes

The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Good Life Quotes , Crazy Quotes

There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Regret Quotes , Loss Quotes

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Annoyed Quotes

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Art Quotes , Feelings 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

When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , May Quotes , Obstacles Quotes

He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Heart Quotes , Mediocrity 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.'

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Inspire Quotes , One Day Quotes

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Summer Quotes , Berries Quotes

In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Most good thinking has its origin in fear.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Thinking Quotes