Alain de Botton Quotes, Dream Quotes, Get Over Quotes

Dreams reveal we never quite get 'over' anything: it's all still in there somewhere.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Dream Quotes , Get Over Quotes

The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Esoteric Quotes , Blunt 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , Doing Nothing 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

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

Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Reality Quotes , Choices Quotes

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Confused Quotes , Ambition 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

True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Majority Quotes , Stem Quotes

Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane; but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Eels Quotes , Style Quotes

The real issue is not whether baking biscuits is meaningful, but the extent to which the activity can seem to be so after it has been continuously stretched and subdivided across five thousand lives.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Difficulty Quotes