1,008 Quotes by Alain de Botton

Friends afford us a change to express our deepest selves, and that the conversations we have with them are a privileged forum in which to say what we really think and, by extension and with no mystical allusion, be who we really are.

We admire New York precisely because the traffic and crowds have been coerced into a difficult but fruitful alliance.

Marriage: a deeply peculiar and ultimately unkind thing to inflict on anyone one claims to care for.

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

Loneliness makes us more capable of true intimacy if ever better opportunities do come along. We might be isolated for now, but we'll be capable of far closer, more interesting bonds with anyone we do eventually locate. 

In the immediate vicinity, there might well be stability and peace. In the garden, a breeze may be swaying the branches of the plum tree and dust may slowly be gathering on the bookshelves in the living room. But we are aware that such serenity does not do justice to the chaotic and violent fundamentals of existence and hence, after a time, it has a a habit of growing worrisome in its own way.

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.

Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.

The more people you have to ask for permission, the more dangerous a project gets.