FastSaying

I've tried to write about Heathrow before and been escorted off the premises.


Alain de Botton

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everythin...
RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER As a producer and director, I've tried for years to get properties off the ground for girls, and...
MELANIE MAYRON I've never tried to define my states of mind when I write.
ADRIENNE KENNEDY I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorist...
DAVID SEDARIS I've been ripping the Rolling Stones off with every song I write in some form or another.
BRAD PAISLEY I've always been rapping before I was making money off of it. Before I made a profit, I had alwa...
MEEK MILL I will not write about anyplace in the world unless I've been there to personally research it.
SIDNEY SHELDON I've been through my fair share of highs and lows. Yes, I've been written off, and it amazes...
SHILPA SHETTY I've never tried to emulate anyone. I've never idolized people, I prefer instead to get off ...
MICHAEL HUTCHENCE I've tried to write from my own understanding of identity in all my comics, whether it's abo...
GENE LUEN YANG I've had a lot of girls reach out to me about struggling with body image. I've only been abl...
TROIAN BELLISARIO With relationships, I've been through a lot of different situations with different people, and I...
KAT DAHLIA I've been meaning to write about the Rolling Stones, but I am the furthest thing from a hipster ...
DIABLO CODY I think I need the demons in order to write, but the demons have gone. It bothers me a lot. I've...
BRIAN WILSON I'm totally not against plastic surgery. I've tried Botox before. That's the only thing ...
KIM KARDASHIAN I've never been fired in my life. From anything. I've never failed at anything I've trie...
TOM FRESTON I write a lot in my head. I've never been driven to write things down.
EDWARD P. JONES We've had to be escorted out of venues, things like that. We get security guards now.
LUKAS FORCHHAMMER I've been wanting to write a book about what goes into creating a novel, and the story behind &#...
DAMON GALGUT I'm an immigrant and I've always wanted to write something about America.
PETER JENNINGS With my human rights advocacy, that's always been through my writing. I've always tried to w...
RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH For years I've wanted to write about the Australian countryside, but, like most Australians, I&#...
KATE GRENVILLE I've been a model for 15 years, and I've been on 'Top Chef' for eight seasons, and b...
PADMA LAKSHMI I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've...
ALAN JACKSON Kids have been let down by adults - we've tried to give them too much, we've tried not to im...
DALEY THOMPSON Putting people before profits is how we've tried to operate from the beginning.
S. TRUETT CATHY I've been to Bali twice and Marrakech twice. I thought Vienna was great. I will take girlfriends...
EION BAILEY I've always tried to not let movie, television or theatre be all that my life is about. I've...
DAVID MORSE I've been writing for a long time, and I've loved comic books for a long time - forever - bu...
YURI LOWENTHAL One of the exciting things about reporting is going to places you've never been to before.
H. G. BISSINGER I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES I'm a De Niro fan. I went eleven years without seeing a movie; the last one before that, Februar...
AUGUST WILSON I've been reading about the idea of cyclical lives - it matches up to the idea of string theory ...
STURGILL SIMPSON You have to keep challenging yourself. I've always tried to do that, and I'm not saying I...
PAUL WELLER I've never been to a race car race before.
CHRISTINA RICCI I've always been spontaneous and outgoing... I've tried lots of things so I've got some ...
LEONARDO DICAPRIO Alain Chapelle [Ducasse's mentor], Alain Ducasse, Didier Elena - I learned from all of them.
ALAIN DUCASSE I'm so excited about 'Shattered;' it's something I've really enjoyed working in,...
CALLUM KEITH RENNIE I've been slagged off completely by the art world.
TRACEY EMIN I'm happy being myself, which I've never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried...
ANGELINA JOLIE A lot of other bands have tried to go out there and say we've got views on this and views on tha...
NICK RHODES I've always been an improviser. I was one before I knew even what the word was... And acting, th...
ALAN ARKIN I've always been able to recount things, and I have a really good memory about dialog and what p...
CAROL BURNETT I've learned more and more on each show that I've done. I've been blessed and I've g...
STEVEN R. MCQUEEN I've decided to recast myself as Utopian. I like this landscape of the M25 and Heathrow. I like ...
J. G. BALLARD It's been years since I've had a real input in the game anyway. For this game, I've just...
BEAR BRYANT I've been writing way before 'X Factor,' and I've been doing shows before 'X Fac...
ASTRO I was an audience member before I'm a filmmaker. All I've tried to do as a filmmaker was to ...
DEREK CIANFRANCE I've dealt with losing close ones before, and I've been around friends that have lost friend...
SCOTTY MCCREERY I've been doing the 'Sherman's Lagoon' strip for about 18 years, and I was a politic...
JIM TOOMEY In the past, I've tried to show the human side of people involved in stigmatised or misunderstoo...
LOUIS THEROUX To me, I've played full seasons and had success. Mentally, I've been through it before. I...
COLIN KAEPERNICK My wonderful editor, Jackie Onassis, asked me to write a book that I wanted to write. I said, 'L...
JUDITH JAMISON I write poetry on my iPhone. I've got about 100 poems on there.
AARON NEVILLE I've consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I've a...
CHARLES MCCARRY I feel completely alone - it's like melting, I am the structure, and I am also Alain Robert.
ALAIN ROBERT Historically, Heathrow has been something of a joke, outweighed by its excellent connections. We hav...
PHILIP HAMMOND I've been strong and determined all my life about many things I've wanted.
CALVIN KLEIN I've never come into anything successful before. I've always been hired by horrible radio st...
HOWARD STERN Sometimes I just want to write a really intense love scene. But I can't do that in my books for ...
MEG CABOT I've been wanting to sing for a long time. I've been singing all my life, and I've tried...
FANTASIA BARRINO I've been in the States and fought before. When I'm in that changing room, I'll feel as ...
LIAM SMITH I've truly tried to be apolitical.
DAVID PETRAEUS I've tried to let the work I do speak.
DAVID MORSE Sticking to my schedule, I've gotten over seven months ahead, which allowed me to write a 'P...
STEPHAN PASTIS I've never been an individual guy. I never cared about the accolades. I've always been drive...
KEVIN GARNETT I've made money, and I've been ripped off. I've had creative freedom, and I've been ...
DAVID BYRNE And I tried it and I felt, I guess I must have been pulled in by the red light of television and now...
STAR JONES I've tried a few times to depart from what I know I can do, and I've failed. I've tried ...
IRVING PENN I've had many incidents in my life of racism. I've been thrown on the ground. I've been ...
FOREST WHITAKER I've flown out of character so many times. In that sense I've been lucky, because I've b...
JUNE CARTER CASH I've been writing since I'm five years old. I've been writing books since high school - ...
KARRINE STEFFANS After 'Lindbergh,' my publisher asked whom I wanted to write about next. I said, 'There&...
A. SCOTT BERG For myself, I haven't been content to carry on producing books that merely strain against the co...
WILL SELF I've lost love. I've tried to reclaim a lost love and didn't know how to do it.
SAM WORTHINGTON Ever since I've been young I've been fascinated by the human body. I've written songs ab...
ELLIE GOULDING I've always been a writer, I've always been a storyteller, but I never thought about screenw...
DIABLO CODY All my tattoos, they've been thought out, thought over, been a work in progress for at least a y...
COLIN KAEPERNICK At least 50 times. I've jumped off a building, jumped off a cliff in a car. I've been in bed...
DENNIS RODMAN I've always tended to write comedy, but I'd hate to just write some kind of sitcom or a ligh...
DAVID THEWLIS I've always known, before I had a record deal, that the thing is to go out and put on the show. ...
FLO RIDA I do portraits. I usually do live models in a class environment, but I've been painting at home ...
MICHELLE PFEIFFER I've always been passionate about acting. I haven't been passionate about being famous.
DAVID ALPAY As a teenage girl myself, I've gone through times in my life where I've felt insecure about ...
KELLI BERGLUND I've always tried to vote my conscience.
LEONARD LANCE I am innocent. I have not been on the premises up there.
JOSEPH LYNCH I've been trying really hard to be more domesticated. It's not in my nature to clean and coo...
JENNA DEWAN I talked about becoming stupid, but I've always been stupid. Fortunately I've been just smar...
LARRY WALL When my sister and I were very young, my father used to tell us fairy stories that he'd made up....
NICOLAS ROEG I write a good amount. I've been gathering up a backlog of stuff and maybe I'll do something...
MACAULAY CULKIN I kind of stumbled into acting, even though I've always been fascinated by people and kind of th...
ADAN CANTO I've been here before and will come again, but I'm not going this trip through.
BOB MARLEY Towards the end of last season, Titus was outstanding for us and I have been very happy with Jean-Al...
GRAEME SOUNESS I write to please me, and I've been very lucky. It's like playing baseball. You just keep sw...
KAREN ROBARDS I leave a $100 bill and a note to the housekeeper at every hotel I've ever been in. It's imp...
JIM IRSAY I've always been down-to-earth about money.
CHYNNA PHILLIPS Had I been older, I would've never been able to pull it off because I would've analyzed it t...
FRANK ABAGNALE Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON

More Alain de Botton

Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Atheism is having a heyday in the born-again United States.
ALAIN DE BOTTON What bothers me is that there is so much emphasis on food, rather than gathering and meeting - so th...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuou...
ALAIN DE BOTTON One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON ...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally blo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn
ALAIN DE BOTTON The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is c...
ALAIN DE BOTTON At the top of the slope on the perimeter of the site, overlooking six lanes of motorway, is a diner ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I was an incredibly lonely, very alienated teenager.
ALAIN DE BOTTON I am not a foodie, thank goodness. I will eat pretty much anything. A lot of my friends are getting ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There is militaristic-hegemonic-plutocratic side of the U.S. which is getting out of hand and threat...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It's almost a blessing when we meet people who naturally want to do the sort of things that are ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes yo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Small issues are really just large ones that haven't been accorded the requisite attention.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Fantasies can be great, but we shouldn't make the wedding a fantasy, because the wedding is the ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Most of the time, we make discoveries about how difficult people are at the moment when the difficul...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The thing is that love gives us a ringside seat on somebody else's flaws, so of course you'r...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I'm one of those introverted people who simply feels a lot better after spending time alone thin...
ALAIN DE BOTTON My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots o...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can m...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "lu...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We tend to think of philosophies as produced by professional philosophers. Traditionally, this has m...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The romantic person instinctively sees marriage in terms of emotions, but what a couple actually get...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
ALAIN DE BOTTON What makes people good communicators is, in essence, an ability not to be fazed by the more problema...
ALAIN DE BOTTON A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which th...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Parents don't reveal how often they have bitten their tongue, fought back the tears, or been too...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The humanities have been forced to disguise, both from themselves and their students, why their subj...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Sometimes my biography is interpreted as the upbringing of a French aristocrat. It was very, very di...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
ALAIN DE BOTTON The more people you have to ask for permission, the more dangerous a project gets.
ALAIN DE BOTTON What annoys me about most self-help books is that they have no tragic sense. They have no sense that...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON The start receives such disproportionate attention because it isn't deemed to be just one phase amon...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
ALAIN DE BOTTON If you are pro love, you have to be a little bit disloyal to the romantic feelings that propel you i...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child m...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Secular thinkers have a separation between thinking and doing. They don't have a grasp of the ba...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I waste most of the day, then finally start to write around 3 P.M., totally disgusted with myself fo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We have to put aside the customary historical reading of works of art in order to invite art to resp...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I remember going to university, and the people who'd left home for the first time looked at the ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Everyone's more vulnerable than they seem, and I think men are more vulnerable. Once you get clo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON At 'The School of Life', we take seriously anything that has to do with human fulfilment - a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, c...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON As for despair, it comes about when I have been a fool and hate myself and despair of my personality...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Therapy and counseling can do wonderful things for people. But they have emerged so far as what are ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The idea that one might use art for 'instrumental' reasons tends to set off alarm bells at t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We are never through with the requirement for acceptance. This isn't a curse limited to the inadequa...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentia...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - tha...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day-to-day take on things. The bare fa...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich peo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two p...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie P...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Used to do a lot of falling in love with people, almost in the street, and imagining that there woul...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Le Corbusier is an outstanding writer. His ideas achieved their impact in large measure because he c...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Since the beginning of the 20th century, the public's relationship to art has been weakened by a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a certain kind of insular, old-fashioned, upper-class Britishness that gives me the spoo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I've had my successes and failures. I know many academics in my field loathe me. I've come t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere - and I really don't get on with mach...
ALAIN DE BOTTON For thousands of years, it had been nature--and its supposed creator--that had had a monopoly on awe...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom
we know nothing. Romances...
ALAIN DE BOTTON A person cannot be at once a libertine and a married Romantic, however compelling both paradigms mig...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have repla...
ALAIN DE BOTTON What we typically call love is only the start of love. Our understanding of love has been hijacked a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON On account of its scale and complexity, the world will always outstrip the capacity of any single bo...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writer...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once (we soon feel ungrateful) or tho...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were w...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a constant tension between the excitement of new people and security with one person. If...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never sav...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There is no one more likely to destroy us than the person we marry.
ALAIN DE BOTTON The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close. His mind has been wound to a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Many people in the intellectual elite are very scared of shouting. They insist on very quiet murmurs...
ALAIN DE BOTTON as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status an...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is according to how we are able to answer the question of what we do (normally the first enquiry ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the statu...
ALAIN DE BOTTON People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answe...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There is a danger of developing a blanket distaste for modern life which could have its attractions ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire li...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in ot...
ALAIN DE BOTTON One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This...
ALAIN DE BOTTON A good half of the art of living is resilience.
ALAIN DE BOTTON ...workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with on...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Literature has always had its circus side, its freaks and its frivolities - and maybe that's all par...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I love the idea of a university as away from capitalist values, where people can do things that don&...
ALAIN DE BOTTON What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent techno...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is one of the unexpected disasters of the modern age that our new unparalleled access to informat...
ALAIN DE BOTTON In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surren...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t al...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who w...
ALAIN DE BOTTON In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Snobbery exists in all areas of life, not least literary criticism. By snobbery I mean, any method o...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to h...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Because I have this thing about birthdays--they always remind me of death and forced jollity.
ALAIN DE BOTTON He was a volatile mixture of confidence and vulnerability. He could deliver extended monologues on p...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The feeling one has no time to get anything done provides the pressure that guarantees one does get ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I'm fascinated by Comte's clear-eyed analysis of what was wrong with modern society, which i...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent.
ALAIN DE BOTTON The idea of a book that can make a change to your life, that can affect your perspective, is a beaut...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our plane...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actu...
ALAIN DE BOTTON He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a...
ALAIN DE BOTTON There are books that speak to us of our own lives with a clarity we cannot match. They prevent the m...
ALAIN DE BOTTON On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Travel is a lot like love.
ALAIN DE BOTTON What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
ALAIN DE BOTTON I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Work is a way of bringing order to chaos, and there's a basic satisfaction in seeing that we are...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration.
ALAIN DE BOTTON I see religion as a storehouse of lots of really good ideas that a secular world should look at, rai...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.
ALAIN DE BOTTON For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualis...
ALAIN DE BOTTON In 'Art as Therapy', we argue that art is a tool that can variously help to inspire, console...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I was a very un-literary child, which might reassure parents with kids who don't read.
ALAIN DE BOTTON In our more arrogant moments, the sin of pride—or superbia, in Augustine's Latin formulation—tak...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Partially undermining the manufacturer's ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful co...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis o...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We shoul...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We don't need to be constantly reasonable in order to have good relationships; all we need to have m...
ALAIN DE BOTTON To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humani...
ALAIN DE BOTTON I think of myself as quite a shy person. But when I'm curious about something, I'll go quite...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Artworks are especially good at helping our psyches in a variety of ways: they rebalance our moods, ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON [T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister th...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.
ALAIN DE BOTTON Whatever modern democracies may tell themselves about their commitment to free speech and to diversi...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing coun...
ALAIN DE BOTTON To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON A storyteller who provided us with such a profusion of details would rapidly grow maddening. Unfortu...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the const...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpre...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Even if our loved ones have assured us that they will be busy at work, even if they told us they hat...
ALAIN DE BOTTON You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneven...
ALAIN DE BOTTON What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as in...
ALAIN DE BOTTON We would like to go and see the field that Millet…shows us in his Springtime, we would like Claude...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Our feelings of anxiety are genuine but confused signals that something is amiss, and so need to be ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for maki...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we c...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Nature puts us all in our places. Being made to feel small isn't something we welcome when it's done...
ALAIN DE BOTTON in Flaubert’s eyes, that only entirely illiterate and uneducated Frenchmen now stood a chance of b...
ALAIN DE BOTTON A clean conscience is the preserve of those without sufficient imagination.
ALAIN DE BOTTON In the past, Flaubert implied, idiots had had no clue as to what the carbon structure of diamonds wa...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
ALAIN DE BOTTON But we would do well to meditate daily, rather as the religious do on their God, on the 9.5 trillion...
ALAIN DE BOTTON To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone. This isn...
ALAIN DE BOTTON One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
ALAIN DE BOTTON What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written bec...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we ...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting dam...
ALAIN DE BOTTON It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as t...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Jarenlang kwam ik bij het boodschappen doen langs een huis dat weliswaar een van de lelijkste gebouw...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Snobbery exists in all areas of life, not least literary criticism. By snobbery I mean, any method o...
ALAIN BOTTON Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writer...
ALAIN BOTTON I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - tha...
ALAIN BOTTON I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day-to-day take on things. The bare fa...
ALAIN BOTTON