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
home may exotic
What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.
love may ends
...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.
heart mediocrity may
He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.
country may developing-countries
The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.
may obstacles financial
Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.
hints may matter
The origins and travels of our purchases remain matters of indifference, although to the more imaginative at least a slight dampness at the bottom of a carton, or an obscure code printed along a computer cable, may hint at processes of manufacture and transport nobler and more mysterious, more worthy of wonder and study, than the very goods themselves.
desire may littles
Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
looks may proust
The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust's therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.
littles may rich
Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
significant-things people may
There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
real may tests
Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
disgusted finally nature totally wasteful
I waste most of the day, then finally start to write around 3 P.M., totally disgusted with myself for my wasteful nature.
meeting run sit
When I'm writing, I write all day. Other days, I sit around thinking. Or I run around from one meeting to another, out in the world. It varies, and I like that.
bad concepts describe good heaven hell invented virtue
Virtue is its own reward. We only invented concepts like heaven and hell to describe how we feel. We don't feel good doing bad and it's nice to help someone.