We are never through with the requirement for acceptance. This isn't a curse limited to the inadequate and the weak. Insecurity may even be a peculiar sign of well-being. It means we haven't allowed ourselves to take other people for granted, that we remain realistic enough to see that things could genuinely turn out badly and that we are invested enough to care.
Alain de Botton
Related If we all look at life we think how nice, then we look at death and everybody goes oh you can say th... GARY F EVANS... It's a lie to think that you are not good enough. It's a lie to think that you are not beautiful. It... DISON ARNIBAL We are far from perfect but willing to be different. CRAIG GROESCHEL A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and ali... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because w... GABRIELLE ZEVIN That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it. EMINEM We are responsible for ourselves and each other. RODEL NATIVIDAD CASIO Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an... LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD Convinced that we're living the whole time that we're dying. We decide to go out walking the wh... TEGAN QUIN We may not get to choose how we die, but we can chose how we live. The universe may for... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long ... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON If you love someone you must set them free like the wind and give them the respect they deserve.If y... GARY F EVANS... I am aware that everyone that exists has a story, and we all exist because that story is important f... ARZELL Dae FATE NAYAE Nanagha Vandhuttoom Da, Sandy , Na Nata, London Lass,Russian Grapes, Ellorum Ippa Van... SATHESH KUMAR M Food Allergies Are Not Due to Food, Rather Are Due to the Constant Contamination of That Food That Y... THEHEALTHFOODGURU What will happen if we go to 0 day? ... Everything has been wipe out from the techno... DEYTH BANGER Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day. CRAIG GROESCHEL I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made ... RALPH WALDO EMERSON Because you can only die once but you can suffer forever. SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom w... JOAN DIDION We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It... COLSON WHITEHEAD We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL Air is approximately 21% oxygen, our brains feed off of oxygen. So basically we are all airheads. ANDONI GARCIA Inspired By Beauty In Creation We Are One DANIEL GILMAN Are shadows a shadowy reflection of the soul or is it a reflection of who we really are, or possibly... GARY F EVANS... We are this fucking stick in the end... DEYTH BANGER If we're honest with ourselves, most of us know the one thing we lack. CRAIG GROESCHEL We need to know that we are enough and not inadequate because we are not living up to some modern id... MALEBO SEPHODI So, tomorrow, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I'm going to... STEPHEN CHBOSKY There is a lot of negativity and bad habits that just need to be cut out of our lives. Sometimes we ... S.R. CRAWFORD The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so ... CHRISTINA ENGELA I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES I thank God for schools that are serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are vital to perpetu... JAMES C. DOBSON The Bible consistently and directly indicates that when we give generously, we're serving, honoring,... CRAIG GROESCHEL Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect ... THOMAS HARRIS We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profound... HAROLD BLOOM Our failures in charity are chained to a narrowed vision of the world that makes too much of the dif... REBECCA GOLDSTEIN Empathy is a bridge. Our sufferings connect us. Let pain make you softer. AKIROQ BROST Outside... we are just nobody... you could meet me outside... but it doesn't mean that I am DeYtH Ba... DEYTH BANGER Come on... come on... I am waiting for answer... ... Silence doesn't make it... bet... DEYTH BANGER What, the glass is half-full instead of half-empty? Bullshit. What they don't tell you is that regar... T.J. KLUNE God put you on earth with a divine assignment- something prepared in advance for you to do. I've fou... CRAIG GROESCHEL See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be E. LOCKHART Everything passes by, and we are left with just our memories BEN OAK Weirdly enough, the more we give away, the richer we become. CRAIG GROESCHEL We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be ... DOUGLAS COUPLAND Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo... GERMANY KENT What will make you a star is in you SOTONYE ANGA Most of all, we remain focused on our Rock that never moves. CRAIG GROESCHEL When we face the truth about ourselves, we have the opportunity to make the changes necessary to imp... DEYON ANTEKO PITTER In life we take chances to prove to ourselves that we are strong enough to be here. SHAYLEE SCHMIDT I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relations... C. JOYBELL C. What you call dirty and muddy place, is what a pig calls his palace SOTONYE ANGA A Ritual to Read to Each Other If you don’t know the kind of person I am and... WILLIAM STAFFORD A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung... PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE Each day I will accomplish one thing on my to do list. LAILAH GIFTY AKITA We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite... WALTER LIPPMANN Oh, the miraculous energy that flows between two people who care enough to get beyond surfaces and g... ALEX NOBLE If we would only testify to the truth as we see it, it would turn out
that there are hundreds, thous... LEO TOLSTOY People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much;... STEPHEN R. COVEY Things are starting to turn into a windfall for us. We don't take these firsts for granted. DAVE MATTHEWS I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it. OPRAH WINFREY We already shut one bar down, and we're asking that the other bars take for granted that we are taki... JOE HOWELL A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. ALBERT EINSTEIN It was pivotal in making you but you don't remember it. Or do you? Do we understand the events that ... DOUGLAS COUPLAND Congratulations, to the people which made gotham series, still need some more and extra work! DEYTH BANGER So many people shall regret three great things tomorrow; things they did, things they did not do and... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Things are brewing. We will, in all likelihood, be seeing you soon. We may even see the inside of a ... ADAM DURITZ 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give... JAMES C. DOBSON Emotional security is how we feel about ourself, how good we feel in relationships with other people... DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA When you are true to yourself, you will find yourself more easily able to pursue the things that mat... ELIZABETH ALRAUNE Friendship is a double-edged sword one side it can be great and true but the other side it spells be... GARY F EVANS... Our competitive nature as humans means that we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others. You m... DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA If God give you strength and courage, don't use it to intimidate people or overpower them, rather us... ANTHONY LICCIONE You. Are. Mine … I don’t care how wrong we are for each other. I don’t care that I’ll never ... LINDA KAGE The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to y... OSCAR WILDE The more we give, the more we reap the benefits of feeling good in helping others. We are all capabl... ANGIE KARAN The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a... ARUNDHATI ROY The earth is an arena of champions. We are all champions. We all did overcome millions of potential ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH In order to honor God with your wealth, you first have to admit that you are rich. Most people won't... CRAIG GROESCHEL If we care enough to share,there will surely be enough for every one,but if we care for ourselves al... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) Everyone is the Umbrella Man and he is everyone. Every cough, sneeze, smile and wave means both ever... CRAIG CLEVENGER Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the o... DEAN KOONTZ The more often we see the things around us - even the beautiful and wonderful things - the more they... JOSEPH B. WIRTHLIN We were amazed by the people. They worked so hard and they had so little. Things that we take for gr... JANET HEAP Many of you are well enough off that the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for Ame... HILLARY CLINTON We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and ... WENDELL BERRY It’s probably unfair to expect the world at large, or even most people, to see us for all we are. ... VICTORIA MORAN We cannot forget the little things we take for granted in America that remain the disdain of dictato... TRENT LOTT Thanks to our artists, we pretend well, living under canopies of painted clouds and painted gods, in... GREGORY MAGUIRE Life is an endless search. We keep searching and finding and searching SOTONYE ANGA Some people never take a chance and never know what it's like to live life to the full. CHLOE THURLOW There are some things that we are always thinking about. For example, when will speech recognition b... BILL GATES We are neurologically hardwired to seek out people like ourselves. We start forming cliques as soon ... IO TILLETT WRIGHT I think after the season we've been through and us being inconsistent, it's time to turn that around... ANTHONY JOHNSON We may be open limited hours, we're open because of the community. We have a number of people that a... DAVID SANDERSON We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born. We are constantly... ROBERT BENCHLEY He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunti... AMOR TOWLES We finally got enough support and enough funding from the community from the sign program to go ahea... JASON SNYDER Being creatures means that we cannot re-create ourselves in any fashion or form that we desire by a ... ANDREW T. WALKER
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 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 I've tried to write about Heathrow before and been escorted off the premises. 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