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
people missing being-weird
There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
people personality might
People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
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.
intelligent insanity disease
We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
moving journey ships
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
art promise wholeness
Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
bitterness
Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
believe merit problem
The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
character parent trying
As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
mind safe mental-health
Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
nice sunset daffodil
You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
book order people
We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.
reality optimism lines
Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.
interesting people cages
People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.