The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIn a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
-
-
The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn’t know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn’t call.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
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 -
Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.
ALAIN DE BOTTON -
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