There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
ALAIN DE BOTTONUnnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
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Literature 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.
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Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
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Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
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It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.
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The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.
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To one’s enemies: “I hate myself more than you ever could.
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We don’t really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped … We suffer, therefore we think.
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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
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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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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
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