Alain de Botton Quotes, Loss Quotes, Frustration Quotes

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Men Quotes , Age 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

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

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

Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Sleep 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

Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Mind Quotes , Safe 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

It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds to be the purpose of work.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ordinary Quotes , Example 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

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Long Quotes , Alcohol Quotes

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Good sex isn't just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Greek Quotes , Rewards Quotes

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Wish Quotes , Agents Quotes

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Despair Quotes , Events Quotes

An understandable hunger for potential clients tempts many [career counseling therapists] to overpromise, like creative writing teachers who, out of greed or sentimentality, sometimes imply that all of their students could one day produce worthwhile literature, rather than frankly acknowledging the troubling truth, anathema to a democratic society, that the great writer, like the contented worker, remains an erratic and anomalous event, immune to the methods of factory farming.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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