Alain de Botton Quotes, Love Quotes, Princess 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

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Desire Quotes , Stronger Quotes

What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Tiny Quotes , Disappointing Quotes

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones...If...we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Would Be Quotes , World Quotes

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Nice Quotes , Sunset Quotes

If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Ambition Quotes , Love Is Quotes

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Trying Quotes , Truthful Quotes

We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Love Is Quotes , Smartphones Quotes

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration 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

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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