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.
ALAIN DE BOTTONThe mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
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At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
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The good parent: someone who doesn’t mind, for a time, being hated by their children.
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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.
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Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
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The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
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Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.
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The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
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How do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.
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Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
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In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.
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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
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Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
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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.
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Politics is so difficult, it’s generally only people who aren’t quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
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