Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleMayIfsLoveThinkingShouldWorldWayNeedsFeelsMightArtBookAnxietyWorkKnowsMindWritingBelieveEnds

Famous Alain de Botton Quotes

“That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.”

PeopleMenMayDoeSaidEndsSometimesDesireNightWalksCompanyWalkingStandardsAvailableDissatisfactionIdealistHigh Standards
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.”

PeopleThinkingBookMomentsFeelingsLiteratureStuffBitsReaderConversationLonelyHeavyDeeperDisgustingPoliteFeeling Lonely
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.”

PeopleBookEndsJobsPsychologyExampleDesignMaterialsArchitectureTendenciesWho We AreHolidayDomainInappropriateUnsuccessful
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.”

PeopleImportantDifferentCoursesIndividualExistenceGroupsIdentityPositionClaimsInvisibleTreatedComplexityTreatmentVehicleNeverthelessIgnoredSingularityNonsensicalInverseConveying
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.”

PeopleThinkingWayShouldEndsGoalFateModernTalentMarkWingsCrowdsBoringCategoriesSecularMediocreStanding OutInfluentialConformistSecular Society
Author:Alain de Botton
Create 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 what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayWantBelieveChanceMajorityCynicism
Author:Alain de Botton
Create image

“Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is gazing out of the window – a perfect love story interrupted only when the beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.”

PeopleKnowsLooksPersonsLongStoriesBeautifulRomanceFallPerfectImagineJourneyPureConversationWindowTrainFalling In LoveBlowLove StoryNosesBelovedBoardsDullContemplatingNeighbourSandwichesInterruptedGazingCarriagesPerfect LoveHandkerchiefsBeautiful Person
Book:On Love: A Novel
Create image

“The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.”

PeopleLoveTwoStoriesTogetherHouseSpeakLanguageLoversOrdinaryUnderstoodTrue LoveFamiliarDefinedIntimacyCarrieDiscourseDictionaryFamiliarityWeavingTwo Lovers
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

“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