Alain de Botton Quotes, Smartphones Quotes, Interesting Quotes

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Running Quotes , Animal Quotes

William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour. We are not always humiliated by failing; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then do not reach it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pride Quotes , Expectations Quotes

How do the stems connect to the roots?' 'Where is the mist coming from?' 'Why does one tree seem darker than another?' These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Roots Quotes , Tree Quotes

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Infidelity Quotes , Growing Quotes

That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Fighting Quotes , Balance Quotes

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tools Quotes , Literature Quotes

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Travel Quotes , Journey 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Suffering Quotes , Behaviour Quotes

We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Book Quotes , Reading 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

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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