Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Among adults, we can admit that of course, characters are creations. They aren't real people. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It's almost a blessing when we meet people who naturally want to do the sort of things that are in high demand… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Therapy and counseling can do wonderful things for people. But they have emerged so far as what are sometimes called 'cottage industries'… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has worked life out… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We tend to think of philosophies as produced by professional philosophers. Traditionally, this has meant people who have written dissertations on obscure… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Many people in the intellectual elite are very scared of shouting. They insist on very quiet murmurs. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them? — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Some of the reason why we marry the wrong people is that we don't really understand ourselves. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Trying to be a sort of intellectual in the public arena is very irritating to people. They think, 'Why is this bugger… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“To be mature is, we're told, to move beyond possessiveness. Jealousy is for babies. The mature person knows that no one owns anyone.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“He feared that by leaving her he would ruin her life - so he stayed, and did just that.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the constraints of reality.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“We could not be fulfilled if we weren't inauthentic some of the time—inauthentic, that is, in relation to such things as our passing desires… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Insofar as we appreciate order, it is when we perceive it as being accompanied by complexity, when we feel that a variety of elements… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“We can then recognize that we invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society has not… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Half the ingratitude and complacency in the world down to how slowly and imperceptibly most good and bad things unfold.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Does what is praised becomes better? Does an emerald become worse if it isn't praised? And what a gold, ivory, a flower or a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
