Alain de Botton

“We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.”

“The continuing belief that the world is fundamentally just is implied in the very complaint that there has been an injustice.”

“Everyone is extremely hard and troubled to be around. Everyone has something substantially wrong with them. Everyone is extremely hard to live with.”

“At 'The School of Life', we take seriously anything that has to do with human fulfilment - and take note wherever insight on this subject can be found.”

“There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.”

“There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.”

“The greatest compliment I get about my writing is when people say, 'How did you know so much about me?' And of course, the answer is very simple: 'I just observed myself without sentimentality.'”

“Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.”

“When you feel sad, you are participating in a venerable experience, to which I, this monument, am dedicated. Your sense of loss and disappointment, of frustrated hopes and grief at your own inadequacy, elevate you to serious company. Do not ignore of throw away your grief”

“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 and rich is very important - just as in the Middle Ages, people were surrounded by images of religious piety.”

“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”

“The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent.”

“In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.”

“At the top of the slope on the perimeter of the site, overlooking six lanes of motorway, is a diner frequented by lorry drivers who have either just unloaded or or are waiting to pick up their cargo. Anyone nursing a disappointment with domestic life would find relief in this tiled, brightly lit cafeteria with its smells of fries and petrol, for it has the reassuring feel of a place where everyone is just passing through--and which therefore has none of the close-knit or convivial atmosphere which could cast a humiliating light on one's own alienation. It suggests itself as an ideal location for Christmas lunch for those let down by their families.”

“One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds.”

“I am a very aesthetic person.”

“Travel is a lot like love.”

“A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.”

“My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots out there who believe in Santa Claus and fairies and magic and elves, and we're not joining that nonsense.”

“Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.”