"It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is."
― Alain de Botton
"Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions."
― Alain de Botton
"Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people."
― Alain de Botton
"Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things."
― Alain de Botton
"The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone."
― Alain de Botton
“Cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards.”
― Alain de Botton
“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
“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
“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”
― Alain de Botton
“The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.”
― Alain de Botton
“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
“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 only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.”
― Alain de Botton
“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”
― Alain de Botton
“To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.”
― Alain de Botton
“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
― Alain de Botton
“One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.”
― Alain de Botton
“Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.”
― Alain de Botton