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
gratitude punishment paying-taxes
Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.
reading book moments
Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
people tendencies unfortunate
Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
philosophy sadness writing
The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.
drawing looks awareness
The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.
essence alive speak
Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
practice ideas everyday
The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
love-is smartphones desire
True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
inspiring maturity opinion
Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
ideas cynical feelings
Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
moon thinking perspective
When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
book emotion good-book
Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.
insomnia glamorous term
Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
ego ignored ache
So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.