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
impossible worried minutes
Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
people forgiving goes-on
People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.
dream art people
The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
people want dignity
The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.
good-life taken ideas
It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?
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.
greatness artist landscape
There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.
believe moments attractive
Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.
beach hate silly
It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.
annoyed anxiety political
Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.
song home garden
Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
loyalty finest proof
The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
writing use naivety
I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.
communication ideas challenges
I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.