For paranoia about ‘what other people think’ : remember that only some hate, a very few love – and almost all just don’t care.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOne’s doing well if age improves even slightly one’s capacity to hold on to that vital truism: “This too shall pass.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money.
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Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
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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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The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.
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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.
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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
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Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
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After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
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The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
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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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We should read other people’s books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer’s thought that help us to do so.
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Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
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Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
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Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
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