black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Alain de Botton

Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Absolute Afford Desire Grow Relative Something Time Wealth
Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Behaviour Forgive Malice Require Sense Sign Suffer
Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anxiety Assuage Beauty Lose Photograph Place Possession Precious Sparkle Take
A good half of the art of living is resilience.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Good Half Live Resilience
In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anxiety Between Day Gap Humiliation One Present Wish
Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

After All Get OK People System Tendency Top Unfortunate
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
One’s doing well if age improves even slightly one’s capacity to hold on to that vital truism: “This too shall pass.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Age Capacity Do Hold Improve One Pass Shall Slightly
Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Act Conscious Cynical Draw Money Object Power World
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Childlike Journey Life Nourish Precious Relevant Secular Seem Vulnerable
When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Evaluate Modest Property Repeatedly Scene Urge Value World
A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Build Chain Change Connect Danger Information Necessary Receptivity See Thing Travel
I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belong Church Music Nice Swallow
Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Among Habitat Ignore Million People Turn
We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Heart Impress Keep People Place Refuse Special
The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Apparently Blunt Connect Esoteric Larger One Question Smaller

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alain de Botton Quotes