Alain de Botton Quotes, Differences Quotes, Despair Quotes

The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Differences Quotes , Despair 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

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Real Quotes , Judgement 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

Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Religious Quotes , Atheist Quotes

According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Home Quotes , Dwelling 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

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

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Light Quotes , Smell 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

Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

When work is not going well, it's useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers - and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, "Don't you worry about being called names?" retorted, "Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?

6 years ago

Message Copied

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