Alain de Botton
find out something is not understand
"It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is."
― Alain de Botton
envy tangle ambition
"Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions."
― Alain de Botton
better life people
"Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people."
― Alain de Botton
maturity no opinion
"Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things."
― Alain de Botton
human challenge interesting smartphone
"The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone."
― Alain de Botton
cynic idealist high standard
“Cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards.”
― Alain de Botton
age improve capacity pass
“One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.”
― Alain de Botton
learn problem pain hope suffer think
“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.”
― Alain de Botton
lost crazy desperate good life certainty reason
“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”
― Alain de Botton
hope despair story fact
“The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.”
― Alain de Botton
bash life beauty daffodil sunset
“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.”
― Alain de Botton
personalitydefend anxiety sadness
“The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".”
― Alain de Botton
people interesting rattle bars cages
“People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.”
― Alain de Botton
embarrassed last year learning enough lifelong
“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”
― Alain de Botton
enemy hate
“To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.”
― Alain de Botton
work-life balance worth fight life value
“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
― Alain de Botton
protect disappointment business
“One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.”
― Alain de Botton
book good reading moment
“Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.”
― Alain de Botton