Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleMayIfsLoveThinkingShouldWorldWayNeedsFeelsMightArtBookAnxietyWorkKnowsMindWritingBelieveEnds

Famous Alain de Botton Quotes

“I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.”

NeedsMeanLittlesEndsDifficultIndustryBuiltConnectionsFortuneSignificantSincereExceptionalSeriousnessDisparityTriviality
Book:The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Create image

“[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
Create image

“It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.”

NeedsLittlesMightPainBeautifulValuesTurnsGriefBuildingAppreciationDialogueAcquireUnusualBeautiful ThingsRequirementsAcquaintancePrerequisites
Book:The Architecture of Happiness
Create image

“It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others...Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion's questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity.”

WorldNeedsFeelsMaySeemsCompanyFitNormalExpectationsAdvantageResponseCuriosityCaughtObservationCompanionTemperCaught UpRemarksAdjustingTraveling AloneCompany We Keep
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“We depend on our surroundings obliquely to embody the moods and ideas we respect and then to remind us of them. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need — but are at constant risk of forgetting what we need — within. We turn to wallpaper, benches, paintings and streets to staunch the disappearance of our true selves.”

NeedsLooksKindIdeasSelfFormTurnsForgetVisionRiskStreetsBuildingPaintingMaterialsDependsConstantCommunicateMoodPsychologicalHelpfulTrue SelfSurroundingsBenchesDisappearanceMould
Book:The Architecture of Happiness
Create image

“We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.”

WorldNeedsMindImportantStatesHomeSidesRoomsAliveVersionsPsychologicalVulnerabilityShoreState Of MindRefugeDesirableAllegiance
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“The assumption is that life doesn't need to be navigated with lessons. You can just do it intuitively. After all, you only need to achieve autonomy from your parents, find a moderately satisfying job, form a relationship, perhaps raise some children, watch the onset of mortality in your parents' generation and eventually in your own, until one day a fatal illness starts gnawing at your innards and you calmly go to the grave, shut the coffin and are done with the self-evident business of life.”

NeedsChildrenSelfDoneJobsFormParentWatchesGenerationsAchieveLessonsOne DayRaisesIllnessGravesAssumptionMortalitySatisfyingEvidentAutonomyJust Do ItCoffins
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.”

PeopleIfsNeedsFeelsLooksHeartWholeProblemTogetherLyingFallRealizingAnswersShareDiscoveryFalling In LoveAttractionConfusedExpectingOffendedDuplicate
Book:On Love: A Novel
Create image

“In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.”

MenLoveNeedsWellsDoeAgeBeliefWaterTreeSolutionsEvidenceComplexesDesertDryDesperateDelusionHorizonShadePrincessThirstPalmsThirstyHallucinationsOasisWitheredPalm Trees
Book:On Love: A Novel
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