Alain De Botton Quotes

When we suspect that we are appropriate targets for hurt, it does not take much for us to believe that someone or something is out to hurt us

~ Alain De Botton

There is an easy way to measure our inner levels of abjectness and friendliness to ourselves: we should examine how well we response to noise.

~ Alain De Botton

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.

~ Alain De Botton

Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie Price's philosophy is one of extraordinary confidence. She is remarkable not for her looks or antics but because of her tremendous self-assurance and her unwillingness to be intimidated by criticism or failure.

~ Alain De Botton

The thing is that love gives us a ringside seat on somebody else's flaws, so of course you're gonna spot some things that kinda need to be mentioned. But often the romantic view is to say, 'If you loved me, you wouldn't criticise me.' Actually, true love is often about trying to teach someone how to be the best version of themselves.

~ Alain De Botton

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

~ Alain De Botton

On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

~ Alain De Botton

A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, concerts and lectures. Yet you can partake of all these experiences and never say hello to anyone new. And one of the things that all religions do is take groups of strangers into a space and say it is OK to talk to each other.

~ Alain De Botton

Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make.

~ Alain De Botton

I see religion as a storehouse of lots of really good ideas that a secular world should look at, raid, and learn from.

~ Alain De Botton

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws.

~ Alain De Botton

I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful.

~ Alain De Botton

Fantasies can be great, but we shouldn't make the wedding a fantasy, because the wedding is the gateway to married life. It shouldn't be a moment of illusion; it should be a moment of preparation.

~ Alain De Botton

Travel is a lot like love.

~ Alain De Botton

I do think that travel can be part of a journey of inner maturation, but you've got to do it right.

~ Alain De Botton

The death of marriage has been announced so often and would seem so normal, in a sense. So what's surprising is the sheer longevity and tenacity of this institution.

~ Alain De Botton

We are properly ready for marriage when we are strong enough to embrace a life of frustration.

~ Alain De Botton

I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.

~ Alain De Botton

What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.

~ Alain De Botton

The romantic person instinctively sees marriage in terms of emotions, but what a couple actually gets up to together over a lifetime has much more in common with the workings of a small business. They must draw up work rosters, clean, chauffeur, cook, fix, throw away, mind, hire, fire, reconcile, and budget.

~ Alain De Botton

To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone.

~ Alain De Botton

There's a constant tension between the excitement of new people and security with one person. If you go with excitement, you create chaos; you hurt people. There's jealousy, and it gets very messy. If you have security, it can be boring, and you die inside because of all the opportunities missed.

~ Alain De Botton

Where is instruction in relationships, in the management of career, in the raising of children, in the pursuit of friendship, in the wise approach to anxiety and death? All this sort of stuff I craved to learn about when I was a student and down to this day.

~ Alain De Botton

The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We should ask ourselves what it is that we find lovely in them - the visions of friendship, togetherness, repose, or whatever. And then consider what would actually help us find these qualities in our lives.

~ Alain De Botton

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.

~ Alain De Botton

The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for wisdom, and this means a short roll call of names; Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epicurus, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche.

~ Alain De Botton

I'm not an academic philosopher, and don't agree with the way the universities approach the subject. I'm a philosopher only in the very loose sense of someone interested in wisdom and well-being attained through reason. But I'm as interested in psychoanalysis and art as I am in philosophy.

~ Alain De Botton

If you are pro love, you have to be a little bit disloyal to the romantic feelings that propel you in the early days.

~ Alain De Botton

I'm fascinated by Comte's clear-eyed analysis of what was wrong with modern society, which is that you've got industrial capitalism on one side and romantic love on the other. Those, along with non-instrumental art, are supposed to get you through the day?

~ Alain De Botton

The claims I'm making for art are simply the claims that we naturally make around music or around poetry. We're much more relaxed around those art forms. We're willing to ask, 'How could this find a place in my heart?'

~ Alain De Botton

I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration.

~ Alain De Botton

It's almost a blessing when we meet people who naturally want to do the sort of things that are in high demand in society. What a gift to do that, as opposed to other people who would say, 'I want to be a novelist but actually I have to be an accountant.'

~ Alain De Botton

My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots out there who believe in Santa Claus and fairies and magic and elves, and we're not joining that nonsense.

~ Alain De Botton