My greatest joy comes from creativity: from feeling that I have been able to identify a certain aspect of human nature and… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don't know certain things. Yet often, they know but just don't care. So… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape… — 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
Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Perhaps because the origins of a certain kind of love lie in an impulse to escape ourselves and out weaknesses by an… — 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 Image
“He feared that by leaving her he would ruin her life - so he stayed, and did just that.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
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 Image
“The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the constraints of reality.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
