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
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.
art would-be world
A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.
people accepting offers
How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
men dust sublime
Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter - pleasurable, intoxicating, even - with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
art imagination world
If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.
art pain philosophy
In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer 's words, to turn pain into knowledge.
art promise wholeness
Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
thinking ideas nervous
There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.
art resilience half
A good half of the art of living is resilience.
disgusted finally nature totally wasteful
I waste most of the day, then finally start to write around 3 P.M., totally disgusted with myself for my wasteful nature.
love-is views names
To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.
capitalist destroyed dogma love monastery pay people refuge stuff university
I love the idea of a university as away from capitalist values, where people can do things that don't immediately have to pay their way. It's like a monastery in a way, and that beautiful refuge has been destroyed by dogma about what this stuff is for.
academics against band common field loathe polite seems successes
I've had my successes and failures. I know many academics in my field loathe me. I've come to loathe them back, as it seems only polite to do so. But at heart it's absurd; we should band together against the big common enemies.
depression despair fool hate prone
As for despair, it comes about when I have been a fool and hate myself and despair of my personality. I am prone to gloom, but not depression as such.