“We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.”
— Alain de Botton
“Not everyone is worth listening to.”
— Alain de Botton
“Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?”
— Alain de Botton
“I think where people tend to end up results from a combination of encouragement, accident, and lucky break, etc. etc. Like many others, my career happened like it did because certain doors opened and certain doors closed.”
— Alain de Botton
“So it’s all about trying to find the best fit between your talents and what the world can offer at that point in time.”
— Alain de Botton
“Deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards.”
— Alain de Botton
“A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.”
— Alain de Botton
“We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.”
— Alain de Botton
“Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.”
— Alain de Botton
“We don't exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand, while to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed; their knowledge and care for us have the power to pull us from our numbness.”
— Alain de Botton