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52 quotes by Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton, FRSL (/dəˈbɒtən/; born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss writer, philosopher, and television presenter who currently lives in the United Kingdom. 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 (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997),...
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It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at... →

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I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it... →

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I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers... →

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On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad... →

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We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to think that to be beautiful... →

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I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever... →

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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... →

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Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these... →

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I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

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The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or... →

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It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

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I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.

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The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other... →

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