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
After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its… — 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
Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Year-end financial statements express a truth about office life which is no less irrefutable yet also, in the end, no less irrelevant… — 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
Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect… — 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
