Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton, FRSLis a Swiss-born, British-based self-help philosopher and public speaker. His books and television programmes discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. At 23, he published Essays in Love, which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life, Status Anxietyand The Architecture of Happiness...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth20 December 1969
rain giving storm
Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.
running animal space
Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.
sublime alternatives lessons
Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.
book done remains
Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.
smartphones interesting challenges
The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.
stupid ideas people
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
envy trying next
We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.
mean media
The media insists on taking what someone didn't mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
revenge intelligent true-evil
Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.
lonely book should
It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.
thinking good-thinking
Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
good-life views skills
If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success. This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convince others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope!
mistake degrees imagine
The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake.
hate thinking people
For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.