Alain de Botton Quotes, Numbness Quotes, Identity Quotes

We don't exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand, while to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed; their knowledge and care for us have the power to pull us from our numbness. In small comments, many of them teasing, they reveal they know our foibles and except them and so, in turn, accept that we have a place in the world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Numbness Quotes , Identity 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

The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , God Quotes , Spiritual Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Reality Quotes , Years 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , God Quotes , Soul Quotes

The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Building Up Quotes , Wave Quotes

Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Work Quotes

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust's therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

We need objects to remind us of the commitments we've made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we're in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The assumption is that life doesn't need to be navigated with lessons. You can just do it intuitively. After all, you only need to achieve autonomy from your parents, find a moderately satisfying job, form a relationship, perhaps raise some children, watch the onset of mortality in your parents' generation and eventually in your own, until one day a fatal illness starts gnawing at your innards and you calmly go to the grave, shut the coffin and are done with the self-evident business of life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Children Quotes

What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Memories Quotes , Lying 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ordinary Quotes , Example Quotes

I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Emotional 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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