Alain de Botton Quotes

Swiss-born British philosopher and writer

Alain de Botton (born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British philosopher and author. His books and television programs discuss various contemporary subjects and themes in a philosophical style, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. De Botton comes from a Sephardic Jewish family, originating from a small Castilian town of Boton (now vanished) on the Iberian peninsula.

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Alternative Names: Alain De Botton

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Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.

The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.

.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.

Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

We should add that it is a privilege to be the recipient of a sulk: it means the other person respects and trusts us enough to think we should understand their unspoken hurt. It is one of the odder gifts of love.

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

The partner truly best suited to us is not the one who miraculously happens to share every taste, but the one who can negotiate differences in taste with intelligence and grace.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.

Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom
we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during
long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is
gazing out of the window – a perfect love story interrupted only when the
beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation
about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or
blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.

One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?