Alain de Botton Quotes, Envy Quotes, Groups 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

Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is gazing out of the window – a perfect love story interrupted only when the beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Hands Quotes , Telephones Quotes

Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sublime Quotes , Bows Quotes

Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Differences Quotes , Despair Quotes

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Wisdom Quotes , Taken Quotes

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Survival Quotes , Safe Quotes

Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Joy Quotes , Remarkable 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

In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Sex Quotes , Suggestions Quotes

Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Must being in love always mean being in pain?

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Pain Quotes , Mean 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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