“Love could not induce us to take on the burden of propagating the species without promising us the greatest happiness we could… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“we would not reliably assent to reproduce unless we first had lost our minds.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“It seems as if, in making a marriage, either the individual or the interest of the species must come off badly.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“The essence of art is that its one case applies to thousands,' knew Schopenhauer.” — alain de botton Copy Share Image
“Analogising architecture with ethics helps us to discern that there is unlikely ever to be a single source of beauty in a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Everyone endeavours to eliminate through the other individual his own weaknesses, defects, and deviations from the type, lest they be perpetuated or… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Chamfort, echoing the misanthropic attitude of generations of philosophers before and after him, put the matter simply: ‘Public opinion is the worst… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I'm not an academic philosopher, and don't agree with the way the universities approach the subject. I'm a philosopher only in the… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Lovers cannot remain philosophers for long, they should give way to the religious impulse, which is to believe and have faith, as… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the judging process, lending legitimacy to theidea that themainstream… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for wisdom, and… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“In Montaigne’s redrawn portrait of the adequate, semi-rational human being, it is possible to speak no Greek, fart, change one’s mind after… — 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
The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“We are inundated with advice on where to travel to, but we hear little of why and how we should go, even… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“What we encounter in works of art and philosophy are objective versions of our own pains and struggles, evoked and defined in… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Shortly after her older brother died, Chloe (who had just celebrated her eighth birthday) went through a deeply philosophical stage. "I began… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“religions merit our attention for their sheer conceptual ambition; for changing the world in a way that few secular institutions ever have.… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Christianity had, in Nietzsche’s account, emerged from the minds of timid slaves in the Roman Empire who had lacked the stomach to… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“religions merit our attention for their sheer conceptual ambition; for changing the world in a way that few secular institutions ever have.… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“The benefits of a philosophy of neo-religious pessimism are nowhere more apparent than in relation to marriage, one of modern society’s most… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will to doubt can… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Neither does philosophy deny the utility of certain kinds of anxiety. After all, as successful insomniacs have long suggested, it may be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“a lack of love: between a man and a woman is the announcement that what they might produce would only be a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie Price's philosophy is one… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“The pursuit of personal happiness and the production of healthy children are two radically contrasting projects, which love maliciously confuses us into… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“By conceiving of love as biologically inevitable, key to the continuation of the species, Schopenhauer's theory of the will invites us to… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through… — 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
![“He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through other eyes, to shuttle between the human and the natural perspective. Why might this be interesting, or even inspiring? Perhaps because unhappiness can stem from only…” quote by Alain de Botton](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b54/alain-de-botton-221_books_he-wordsworth-invited-his-readers-to-aba_616994.jpg)
