Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We accept the need to train extensively to fly a plane; but think instinct should be enough for marrying and raising kids. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
When I'm writing, I write all day. Other days, I sit around thinking. Or I run around from one meeting to another,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Secular thinkers have a separation between thinking and doing. They don't have a grasp of the balance sheet. The doers are selling… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I'm one of those introverted people who simply feels a lot better after spending time alone thinking through ideas and emotions. This… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“It is one of the unexpected disasters of the modern age that our new unparalleled access to information has come at the… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, "Don't you worry about being called names?" retorted, "Why? Do you… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great. — 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
It's easy to forget how little strategic thinking ever gets done in the day. Judging by the ideas generated there, our beds… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There… — 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
