There’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThere’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTONSweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.
ALAIN DE BOTTONIt is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
ALAIN DE BOTTONEveryone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTONForgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
ALAIN DE BOTTONMust being in love always mean being in pain?
ALAIN DE BOTTONWork is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.
ALAIN DE BOTTONBeing content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOur minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
ALAIN DE BOTTONAs adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
ALAIN DE BOTTONLiterature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others – because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
ALAIN DE BOTTONArguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.
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 problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON