The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with… — 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
Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don't know certain things. Yet often, they know but just don't care. So… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as… — 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
