Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Alain de Botton

Quote by Alain de Botton

“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.”

Quote by Alain de Botton

Create image

Author

Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton is a Swiss writer and philosopher known for his books on philosophy, art, and culture. His work is characterized by its accessible exploration of profound themes, which has won him a wide audience. more

You May Also Like

“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

“But you haven't never loved God nor even nair person. You hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I knows you. This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined.”

KnowsHeartPersonsHardEnoughLostHavensLike YouBeatsToughAtheistSatisfiedExcitementAfternoonRuinedGoing To WorkLost You
Book:The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Create image

“But the lack of faith could just as well be a crutch for non-believers, allowing them to live their lives without any concept of accountability and giving them some sort of false confidence. The different is that while Catholicism has an abundance of intellectual underpinnings to support its arguments, anti-Catholicism and atheist have few if any.”

IfsGivingWellsDifferentSupportIntellectualConceptsArgumentAtheistBelieverAbundanceAccountabilityCatholicismAllowingCrutchesNon BelieverLack Of Faith
Author:Michael Coren
Create image

“Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake, at all... My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul. My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is 'Lord, I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.”

MindBelieveHelpingStuffProcessLordFieldsOughtSakeAtheistTemplesDislikeMottoImmoralMosesUnbeliefMy MottoErasmus
Author:E. M. Forster
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