“We can then recognize that we invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I've had my successes and failures. I know many academics in my field loathe me. I've come to loathe them back, as… — 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
We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them. — 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
“Our fear of failing at various tasks would likely be much less were it not for our awareness of how harshly failure… — 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
“For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised; it will never… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“We seem to be unable to resist overstating every aspect of ourselves: how long we are on the planet for, how much… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“If there are so many references in the Mass to poverty, sadness, failure and loss, it is because the Church views the… — 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
“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
“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
