Alain de Botton Quotes, Philosophy Quotes, Book Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Understanding Quotes , Laziness 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

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Understanding Quotes , Findings Quotes

A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Good Relationship Quotes

A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Exciting Quotes

We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so....We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Justice Quotes , Phrases Quotes

Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hurt Quotes , Giving Up Quotes

We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Envy Quotes , Groups Quotes

The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Space Quotes , Community Quotes

What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Giving Up Quotes , Ambition Quotes