We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming... If we spend time in it [the vast spaces… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with… — 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
![“It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming... If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept more graciously the great, unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.” quote by Alain de Botton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b34/alain-de-botton-221_accepting_it-is-not-just-nature-that-defies-us-hum_2567295.jpg)
