“He feared that by leaving her he would ruin her life - so he stayed, and did just that.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has worked life out… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Thunderstorms were what death, and dramatic events, generally should be like, but usually were not; the idea that our life’s dramas rarely… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“We place such demands on our partners, and become so unreasonable around them, because we have faith that someone who understands obscure… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Public life is debased because it's only the nice people who are worried about imposing their views on others.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We are properly ready for marriage when we are strong enough to embrace a life of frustration. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The modern world thinks of art as very important: something close to the meaning of life. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“A feeling of beauty is a sign that we have come upon a material articulation of certain of our ideas of a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“How we feel about 'the nature of existence' is largely determined by what we have to do in the next few hours.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Despite their claims to a purely scientific and reasoned approach, the relationship of Modernist architects to their work remained at base a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“There is a danger of developing a blanket distaste for modern life which could have its attractions but lack the all-important images… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Just be yourself' is about the worst advice you can give some people.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I keep returning… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
What annoys me about most self-help books is that they have no tragic sense. They have no sense that life is fundamentally… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“history tells us of the case of a man living under the peculiar delusion that he was a fried egg. Quite how… — 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
A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Thus was born an astonishing new idea that governments justify their existence only by promoting possibilities for prosperity and happiness among all… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“peculiar, or sad, and yet still deserve a place within the circle of familial love. The parents would thus have created an… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“The moral? That life can be a stranger substance than a cliche life, that goldfinches should occasionally do things differently from their… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Heartache may be bad for the soul, but it's great for bookshops. It's when we are at our lowest romantic ebb that… — 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
