Alain de Botton Quotes, Book Quotes, Glasses 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Travel Quotes , Information Quotes

In reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Reality Quotes , Odds 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

Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Alcohol-inspired fights are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the altars of prudence and order.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Fighting Quotes , Order 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Views Quotes , Quality Quotes

Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter - pleasurable, intoxicating, even - with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Symons remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms - what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true calling.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Law Quotes , Ideas 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

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes

In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

Choosing a spouse and a choosing career: the two great decisions for which society refuses to set up institutional guidance.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Careers Quotes , Two Quotes

I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.

6 years ago

Message Copied

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

It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alain de Botton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Moments Quotes