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
practice contentment violin
Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
believe argument depends
I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.
real world cards
There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
inspirational obvious-things too-late
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
friendship travel company-we-keep
Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
travel journey mindset
The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
eels style mind
Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.
happiness play perspective
Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
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.
optimistic frustration rage
Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.
thinking disrespect gazing
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.
lonely book thinking
There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone goes, 'Oh, that's a bit heavy,' or 'Eew, disgusting.' And literature is a place where that stuff goes; where people whisper to each other across books, the writer to the reader. I think that stops you feeling lonely – in the deeper sense, lonely.
littles may rich
Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
beautiful film cry
The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.