Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleMayIfsLoveThinkingShouldWorldWayNeedsFeels

Famous Alain de Botton Quotes

“If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success. This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convince others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope!”

IfsImportantMightFacesEnergyDifferencesViewsCasesTalentSkillsTasksOptimismDeterminedDuesAbsencePrimariesOutcomesConvinceIngredientsGood LifeElitesAnticipationDoomedRequirementsSuccess And FailureMuster
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“No one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment.”

FirstsArtAblePainSufferingWishAchievePositionProduceMastersLoversOne DayAnxietyEnvyFulfillmentWho We AreWorks Of ArtGapsIngredientsWorldlyHumiliationGreat WorkInitialsGreat LoveIntervalsGreat Lovers
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.”

NeedsShouldSoulHardSeemsMightReligiousViewsChristianityJourneyAtheistCoreVulnerableRealmsRelevantSecularNurtureProvocativeChildlikeThesisDiscreditJourney Through Life
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.”

PeopleNeedsMayAbleEarthNationsDarknessAchieveParticularAtheistExtremesDrivenPrioritiesDisappointedAnxiousAmbitiousSecularRecklessWorking Life
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content - a way, to put it in more abstract terms, to think about Fathers without upsetting my respectful memory of my own father. I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals and illustrated manuscripts of the faiths.”

ThinkingWayGivingMightFatherTermMemoriesMy OwnPrayerBuildingTheoryGiving UpAtheistResistanceCertaintyUpsetMealsAbstractHeavenlyRitualAfterlifeJustificationContinuingRespectfulLiberatedManuscriptsPilgrimageResidentsShrines
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.”

GivingTryingYearsLooksRealityLiteratureEmotionSituationEventsMachinesUltimateDecadesAccessWitnessRangeWasting TimeRange Of Emotions
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image