Alain de Botton Quotes, Book Quotes, Order Quotes

We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Writing Quotes , Self 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

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

The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

It is striking how much more seriously we are likely to be taken after we have been dead a few centuries.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Communication Quotes , Ideas 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities - and we should take care.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Successful Quotes , Bombarded By 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

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tools Quotes , Literature Quotes

If the behaviour of babies and small children is any guide, we emerge into the world with our tendencies to imbalance already well entrenched. In our playpens and high chairs, we are rarely far from displaying either hysterical happiness or savage disappointment, love or rage, mania or exhaustion--and, despite the growth of a more temperate exterior in adulthood, we seldom succeed in laying claim to lasting equilibrium, traversing our lives like stubbornly listing ships on choppy seas.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Baby Quotes , Disappointment Quotes

There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ego Quotes , Ignored Quotes

Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love And Friendship Quotes , And Love Quotes

In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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