black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Alain de Botton

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Easier Except Happy Learn Less Play Practice Require Unnatural Violin
The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Central Conception Emerge Happiness Property Reveal
When 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 BOTTON

Basically Child Father People See Someone
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

Actual Blame Enough Foul Lose Often Temper Those
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bitterness Console Depress Expectation Inspire Love Happy Part Plan Rather
Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Make Moment Most Read Right
The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bed Destiny Force Life Long Nowhere Often Ourselves Romantic Share Stronger Stumble
Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Event Existence Fury Great Ground Sense Spring Violate
When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Look Moon More Often Perspective Problem Really Small Think
I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Challenge Communication Feel Great Idea Time
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle
Sweetness 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 BOTTON

Everywhere Get Interest Kind Machine Machismo Opposite Really Sensitive Sweetness
The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Awaken Certain Company Competitiveness Excite Generously People Sensitivity
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anxiety Assuage Beauty Lose Photograph Place Possession Precious Sparkle Take
A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Animal Capable Emotion Express Human Inability Notorious Suicide Time
I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Day General Life Optimistic Person Pessimistic Take Terrific Thing

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alain de Botton Quotes