Quotes from Alain de Botton

A grasp of the psychological mechanism behind taste will not necessarily change our sense of what we find beautiful, but it can prevent us from reacting to what we don't like with simple disparagement

We are about to understand, but have not yet understood. This moment is important because it generally does not lie up to its promise. We abandon the process of reflection. Not much of a decision about the personal meaning of love, justice or success is achieved, and we move on to something else. Looking at Twombly's painting assists us in a crucial thought: 'The part of me that wonders about important questions and then gets confused has not had enough recognition

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardur and paradoxes - than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and of the struggle for survival.

Beneath many erotic triggers lie symbolic solutions to some of our greatest fears, and poignant allusions to our yearnings for friendship and understanding.

Als we ons met de instelling van de reiziger [met ontvankelijkheid als voornaamste kenmerk] door onze eigen omgeving bewogen, zou deze wellicht niet minder interessant blijken dan de hoge bergpassen en de oerwouden vol vlinders in Humboldts Zuid-Amerika.

Romantik dönem boyuncaruhun hisle baÄŸdaÅŸt?r?ld???ndan bahsetmiÅŸtik; ancak ÅŸunu söylemekte yarar var ki çok k?sa bir süre sonra his;zevkleri ya da mutluluklar? deÄŸil de ac?lar? hissetmekle özdeÅŸlerÅŸtirilir oldu.Bir ÅŸeyleri derinden yaÅŸamak; mutlu olmak;duÅŸta ?sl?k çalmak ya da bahçede ÅŸark? söylemek anlam?na gelmiyordu: Ruhu olan insan ac?lara duyarl? insan demekti art?k.

The love of flowers is a consequence of modesty and an accommodation with disappointment...Held up against certain ideals of success, his life has been a deep disappointment. But he can also see that it is, in the end, no great achievement simply to fixate on the failure. There is valour in being able to identify a forgiving, hopeful perspective on one's life, in knowing how to be a friend to oneself, because one has a responsibility to others to endure.

The child teaches the adult something else about love: that genuine love should involve a constant attempt to interpret with maximal generosity what might be going on, at any time, beneath the surface of difficult and unappealing behavior.

Asumption: monogamy is the natural state of love.(...) It is not! It is an infantile idealism to wish to find everything in one other being

There is terror behind haughtiness. It takes a punishing impression of our own inferiority to leave others feeling that they aren't good enough for us.

Our designs go wrong because our feelings of contentment are woven from fine and unexpected filaments.

How seldom we notice rooftops; how easily our eyes are drawn to the more flamboyant attractions of a Roman temple or Renaissance church.

We know that, when teaching students, only the utmost care and patience will ever work: we must never raise our voices, we have to use extraordinary tact, we must leave plenty of time for every lesson to sink in, and we need to ensure at least ten compliments for every one delicately inserted negative remark. Above all, we must remain calm.

Uno de los principales inconvenientes del amor, al menos durante un tiempo, es que corre el riesgo de hacernos felices.

It isn't surprising if, as adults, when we first start to form relationships, we should devotedly go off in search of someone who can give us the all-encompassing, selfless love that we may once have known in childhood. Nor would it be surprising if we were to feel frustrated and in the end extremely bitter at how difficult it seems to be to find; at how seldom people understand what we need or care to help us properly.

What prevents us from loosening our grip on love is simply a lack of knowledge. This is what can make unrequited love so vicious. By denying us the chance to grow close to the beloved, we cannot tire of them in the cathartic and liberating manner that is the gift of requited love. It isn't their charms that are keeping us magnetized; it is our lack of knowledge of their flaws.

A man can acquire anything in solitude except a character

If drawing had value even when practiced by those with no talent, it was, Ruskin believed, because it could teach us to see -- that is, to notice rather than to merely look. In the process of re-creating with our own hands what lies before our eyes, we seem naturally to evolve from observing beauty in a loose way to possessing a deep understanding of its constituent parts and hence more secure memories of it.

the system glorified by John of Salisbury and John Fortescue, was unjust in a thousand all too obvious ways, but it offered those on the lowest rungs one notable freedom: the freedom not to have to take the achievements of quite so many people in society as reference points—and so find themselves severely wanting in status and importance as a result.

But the museum is only a prelude to a life well lived.

De ironie van de liefde wil dat we het gemakkelijkst en met de meeste zelfverzekerdheid de mensen verleiden tot wie we ons het minst aangetrokken voelen, aangezien we bij een intens verlangen niet in staat zijn de daarvoor vereiste onverschilligheid op te brengen en bij een aantrekkelijk iemand worden geplaagd door een gevoel van minderwaardigheid ten opzichte van de perfectie die we de aanbedene toedichten.

We may be happy with little when we have come to expect little. And we may be miserable with much when we have been taught to expect everything.

We require such 'sensuous' arts, Hegel suggested, because many important truths will impress themselves upon our consciousness only if they have been moulded from sensory, emotive material.

It is the news that introduces us to a far wider range of human beings than we could ever meet in person, and that over time, through the stories it runs and the way it comments on them, forms an idea in our minds about the kind of country we live in.