Quotes from Alain de Botton

F?r? încercare nu exist? eÈ™ec, iar f?r? eÈ™ec, umilin??.

We seem to know far too much about how love starts, and recklessly little about how it might continue.

Obiectivele noastre hot?r?sc ce anume interpret?m drept triumf ?i ce trebuie socotit e?ec.

A world that demands high degrees of self-control, cynicism, and rationality—and is marked by extreme insecurity and competitiveness—justly sees in childhood its own counterbalancing virtues, qualities that have too sternly and definitively had to be surrendered in return for the keys to the adult realm.

Two people who are surprised by a lion in a jungle clearing will – unless one of them is eaten – be effectively bonded by what they have seen.

His accent is kind of irresistible, she says. It makes him feel a little lonely to realise how easy it is to be liked by someone who has no idea who he is.

It is essential for the happiness of couples and the single that one regularly rehearses the very many good reasons why it's OK to spend one's life without anyone. Only once singlehood has completely equal prestige with its alternative can we ensure that people will be free in their choices and hence join couples for the right reasons; because they love another person, rather than because they are terrified of remaining single.

Unfortunately for our esteem, societies of the West are not known for their conduciveness to the surrender of pretensions, to the acceptance of age or fat, let alone poverty and obscurity.

În aceast? lume, respectul de sine depinde integral de ceea ce ne mân? de la spate s? fm sau s? facem.

We are so impressed by honesty that we forget the virtues of politeness; a desire not always to confront people we care about with the full, hurtful aspects of our nature.

They hug tightly, expressing the pure affection available only to two people who have no further designs upon each other. Their lack of time is a privilege.

The clue to dieting: ensuring (not always easy) one has more exciting things to do than eat.

We are not always humiliated by failing at things, he suggested; we are humiliated only if we invest our pride and sense of worth in a given aspiration or achievement and then are disappointed in our pursuit of it.

The fear of forgetting anything precious can trigger in us the wish to raise a structure, like a paperweight to hold down our memories.

The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once (we soon feel ungrateful) or those who never allow us to kiss them (we soon forget them), but those who know how carefully to administer varied doses of hope and despair.

Powerlessness became 'goodness', baseness 'humility', submission to people one hated 'obedience' and, in Nietzsche's phrase, not-being-able to-take-revenge' turned into 'forgiveness'. Every feeling of weakness was overlaid with a sanctifying name, and made to seem 'a voluntary achievement. something wanted. chosen. a deed, an accomplishment.

The essence of art is that its one case applies to thousands,' knew Schopenhauer.

Being alone spares you from constant reminders of how difficult and strange you are. No one is there to hold a mirror up – record your antics and constantly make you accountable for them. If you're lucky, you will be able to tolerate and even like yourself.

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train.

cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards. Through

But reassurance can be the cruelest antidote to anxiety. Our rosy predictions both leave the anxious unprepared for the worst.

We are idiots now, we have been idiots in the past and we will be idiots again in the future - and that is OK.

Most of what makes a book good is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

Does beuty give birth to love? Or does love give birth to beauty? Did I love Chloe because she was beautiful? Or was she beautiful because I loved her?