As in all areas, we can improve how good we are at loving another person. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I see religion as a storehouse of lots of really good ideas that a secular world should look at, raid, and learn… — 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
Virtue is its own reward. We only invented concepts like heaven and hell to describe how we feel. We don't feel good… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The central task for a business is to make a profit. The challenge is to make a profit by doing things which… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Artworks are especially good at helping our psyches in a variety of ways: they rebalance our moods, lend us hope, usher in… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Religions have always been clearly on to this psycho-therapeutic score. For hundreds of years in the West, Christian art had a very… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your… — 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
