It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIt is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe good parent: someone who doesn’t mind, for a time, being hated by their children.
ALAIN DE BOTTONWhen I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I’m basically the child of Richard Dawkins.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThere is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
ALAIN DE BOTTONHe did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
ALAIN DE BOTTONYou have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTONFor paranoia about ‘what other people think’ : remember that only some hate, a very few love – and almost all just don’t care.
ALAIN DE BOTTONGood books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
ALAIN DE BOTTONMan seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter – pleasurable, intoxicating, even – with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOur 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 BOTTONOne of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
ALAIN DE BOTTONYou normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIn the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn’t worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there’s no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven’t had a good time, “Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?”
ALAIN DE BOTTONGood sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
ALAIN DE BOTTON