I waste most of the day, then finally start to write around 3 P.M., totally disgusted with myself for my wasteful nature. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Where is instruction in relationships, in the management of career, in the raising of children, in the pursuit of friendship, in the… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
When I'm writing, I write all day. Other days, I sit around thinking. Or I run around from one meeting to another,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I was told by my father nine times a day that you were going to get a job the minute you finish… — 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
It's easy to forget how little strategic thinking ever gets done in the day. Judging by the ideas generated there, our beds… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Work is a way of bringing order to chaos, and there's a basic satisfaction in seeing that we are able to make… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Parents don't reveal how often they have bitten their tongue, fought back the tears, or been too tired to take off their… — 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
