What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions.
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?”
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
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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.
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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
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Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
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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.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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He 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.
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People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
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I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
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All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.
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Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.
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The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn’t call.
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We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
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