Alain de Botton Quotes, Real Quotes, Cards Quotes

There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sadness Quotes , Worry Quotes

The only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Looks Quotes , Way Quotes

According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Choosing a spouse and a choosing career: the two great decisions for which society refuses to set up institutional guidance.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Responsible for wrapping the iron fist of authority in its velvet glove is Jane Axtell, head of the accountancy firm's Human Resources department.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Iron Quotes , Velvet Quotes

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Travel Quotes , Giving Quotes

By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sleep Quotes , Mind 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

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Health Quotes

If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Falling In Love Quotes , Lying Quotes

To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Is Quotes , Views Quotes

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Views Quotes , Quality 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

We should not be frightened by appearances.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Appearance Quotes , Should Quotes