“Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“We pick our friends not only because they are kind and enjoyable company, but also, perhaps more importantly, because they understand us… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We should ask ourselves what it is… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“There is valour in being able to identify a forgiving, hopeful perspective on one's life, in knowing how to be a friend… — 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
We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We don't exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand,… — 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 been able to solve with any particular skill: first, the need to live together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply rooted selfish and violent impulses. And second, the need to cope with terrifying degrees of… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“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
