Alain de Botton Quotes, Matter Quotes, Moments Quotes

A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Matter Quotes , Moments Quotes

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , World Quotes , Serious Quotes

When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , World Quotes , Proust Quotes

He was a volatile mixture of confidence and vulnerability. He could deliver extended monologues on professional matters, then promptly stop in his tracks to peer inquisitively into his guest's eyes for signs of boredom or mockery, being intelligent enough to be unable fully to believe in his own claims to significance. He might, in a past life, have been a particularly canny and sharp-tongued royal advisor.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Rain Quotes , Giving 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hopeful Quotes , Angry Quotes

We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pain Quotes , Thinking 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

We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Forgiving Quotes , Blame Quotes

The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Destiny Quotes , Stronger Quotes

Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Loyalty Quotes , Finest 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?

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , God Quotes , Spiritual 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