My father paid for my education; then he made it clear that I was on my own. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Children may end up being the unexpected teachers of people many times their age, to whom they offer—through their exhaustive dependence, egoism,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“In a more evolved world, one a little more alive to the Greek ideal of love, we would perhaps know to be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“In a more evolved world, one a little more alive to the Greek ideal of love, we would perhaps know to be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“gladly come back to the theme of the absurdity of our education: its end has not been to make us good and… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Maturity means acknowledging that Romantic love might only constitute a narrow and perhaps rather mean-minded aspect of emotional life, one principally focused… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“For all the talk of education, modern societies neglect to examine by far the most influential means by which their populations are… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“In the field of education, it seems ‘normal’ to run stories about class sizes, teachers’ pay, the country’s performance in international league… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“There are countries in which the communal provision of housing, transport, education and health care is so inferior that inhabitants will naturally… — 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
