Alain de Botton Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.

  Alain de Botton

  Significant Things, People, May

  Alain de Botton (2012). “How Proust Can Change Your Life”, p.94, Pan Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

  Alain de Botton

  Real, Judgement, Intuition

  Twitter post from Feb 05, 2013

  15 Copy quote

• People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

  Alain de Botton

  People, Interesting, Bars

  Twitter post from Apr 18, 2011

  13 Copy quote

• Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.

  Alain de Botton

  Thinking, People, Matter

  11 Copy quote

• We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

  Alain de Botton

  Beautiful, Witty, Falling In Love

  Alain De Botton (1993). “On Love”, Grove/Atlantic

  60 Copy quote

• What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.

  Alain de Botton

  Tiny, Disappointing, Bigs

  8 Copy quote

• Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

  Alain de Botton

  Inspirational, Obvious Things, Too Late

  10 Copy quote

• We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

  Alain de Botton

  Book, Glasses, Lessons

  "Alain de Botton: How Proust Can Change Your Life". bigthink.com. 2017.

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Divorce, Unhappy

  8 Copy quote

• Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

  Alain de Botton

  Tools, Literature, Littles

  15 Copy quote

• It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

  Alain de Botton

  Understanding, Findings, Closest

  "The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, 2000.

  16 Copy quote

• Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.

  Alain de Botton

  Smell, People, Ignored

  62 Copy quote

• The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

  Alain de Botton

  Stupid, Ideas, People

  Twitter post from Nov 02, 2014

  9 Copy quote

• The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others' appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.

  Alain de Botton

  Play, Judgement, Identity

  Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.8, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

  Alain de Botton

  Genius, Structure, Inner Life

  5 Copy quote

• Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

  Alain de Botton

  Book, Reading, Moments

  Twitter post from Sep 16, 2013

  11 Copy quote

• The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.

  Alain de Botton

  Sexy, Feelings, Excitement

  36 Copy quote

• A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

  Alain de Botton

  Achievement, Ordinary, Enough

  "The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, Chapter IV, Consolation For Inadequacy, 2000.

  9 Copy quote

• As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.

  Alain de Botton

  Character, Parent, Trying

  Twitter post from Aug 16, 2017

  20 Copy quote

• The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

  Alain de Botton

  Hands, Telephones, Beloved

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.20, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

  Alain de Botton

  Impossible, Worried, Minutes

  7 Copy quote

• People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.

  Alain de Botton

  People, Personality, Needs

  12 Copy quote

• Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

  Alain de Botton

  Thinking, Disrespect, Gazing

  12 Copy quote

• The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.

  Alain de Botton

  Difficulty, Oneself

  8 Copy quote

• The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

  Alain de Botton

  Smartphones, Interesting, Challenges

  Twitter post from Jan 05, 2013

  7 Copy quote

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