“We chase after more exciting others, not in the belief that life with them will be more harmonious, but out of an… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
You will often be in despair. You will sometimes think it's the worst decision in your life. That's fine. That's not a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement… — 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
“Saint Augustine consolingly codified unhappiness as an immutable feature of existence, part of "the wretchedness of man's situation," and poured scorn on… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first—the story of our quest for sexual… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Ordinary life rewards a practical, unintrospective outlook. There's too little time and too much fear for anything else. We let ourselves be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors,… — 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
“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
“He feared that by leaving her he would ruin her life - so he stayed, and did just that.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
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
“The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the constraints of reality.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
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
“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
“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
I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“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
“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
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
“Does what is praised becomes better? Does an emerald become worse if it isn't praised? And what a gold, ivory, a flower or a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
