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Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton Quotes

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Famous Alain de Botton Quotes

“For all his understanding of worldly concerns, when it came to fathoming the deeper meaning of his own furious activity, Sir Bob displayed the sort of laziness for which he himself had no patience in others. He appeared to have only a passing interest in the overall purpose of his financial accumulation.”

PurposeUnderstandingInterestActivityConcernFinancialDeeperPassingPassingsBobLazinessWorldlyAccumulationFuriousNo PatienceDeeper Meaning
Author:Alain de Botton
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“The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.”

HumansLeftAttentionImpossibleCenturyTasksRewardsFinancialPhilosopherSatisfactionGreekSignificanceFormulasThinkerSpheresLeisureLackingUnlikelyBourgeoisDrainedGreek PhilosopherUnproductiveHaphazardDilettantes
Author:Alain de Botton
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“What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.”

WantGivingShouldIdeasEndsEnoughFactsWantedFocusJourneyGiving UpAmbitionWhat You WantArguingAuthorshipGetting What You Want
Author:Alain de Botton
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“Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one.”

MayHappinessSuccessFallResultsWorryOur LivesFailingDangerAnxietyCapableIdealsDignityOur SocietyModestConformPerniciousDignity And Respect
Author:Alain de Botton
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“One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds.”

KnowsWorldWantGivingDifferentHomeRealityForgetStreetsPerspectiveGiving UpNormalAlternativesJust OneNever Giving Up
Author:Alain de Botton
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“Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.”

MightFoundModernDivineLateSummerBlindFruitCreatorAvailableUnexpectedSensationsAncestorEvidentSectionsHandfulOccasionalImpatienceDelightedGave UpBerriesSporadicLate Summer
Book:The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
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“[T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness.”

WayNeedsFactsDifferencesResultsHabitThousandFellowsBlindVersionsDespiteDistractionFragileUncertainLensesCravingFlawedUrgentAlteredExhaustionAssessmentWrong WaySinisterCloudedUnsympathetic
Author:Alain de Botton
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“The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones...If...we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought.”

IfsIdeasProblemOrderLanguageGreaterVery GoodDimensionsOur ThoughtsSuperficialObligedAbsentEtiquetteAccuracyDistinctiveArticulationTimbre
Author:Alain de Botton
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“Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.”

GivingMayDoeSelfPainHurtLove IsResponsibilityGiving UpPreparedOneselfPainfulDamageUnrequited LoveBe PreparedUnrequitedBittersweetPassivityBeing Hurt
Book:On Love: A Novel
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