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
glasses understanding hurtful
The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.
stupid ideas people
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
smell light childhood
Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
lazy sloth quoting
There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
dream believe destiny
The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
love may ends
...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.
media people benefits
Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.
laughter optimistic laughing
I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day- to- day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
art feelings might
Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.
envy people generosity
The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
thinking
What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
drinking self drawing
The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.
sex believe rejection
Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
thinking people matter
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.