black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

Alain de Botton

There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Emotion Lazy Option Quote
A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beauty Capable Excite Feature Sense Spectator Successful Work
The good parent: someone who doesn’t mind, for a time, being hated by their children.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Children Good Hate Mind Parent Someone Time
As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers – and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Atheist Believer Non Normal One Religion Thing Try Value
We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Amid Appear Divergent Each Hold Native Ourselves Quality Range Such Uncertainty View
A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devote Enough Entire Good Job Life Practically
A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Animal Capable Emotion Express Human Inability Notorious Suicide Time
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beautiful Like Live Most Perhaps Problematic Receptive Thing
The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Answer Best Mind Morning Think
Dreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anything Dream never Quite Reveal Somewhere
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Complex Delusion Desert Hallucinate Horizon Need Oasis Prince Princess
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Compare Crucial Expectation Keep Mould Other Response Temper World
We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Actual Blame Enough Foul Lose Often Temper Those
Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Essence Exist Existing Love Perhaps Properly Someone Speak Until
Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beautiful Deal Endeavor Feeling Long Love Purchase Response Something Think Way
There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Choice Inevitable Long Loss Need Regret Return Time

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alain de Botton Quotes