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
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
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the public's relationship to art has been weakened by a profound institutional reluctance to address… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“In a more evolved world, one a little more alive to the Greek ideal of love, we would perhaps know to be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Once we are involved in a relationship, there is no longer any such thing as a minor detail.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them. — 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
