The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.
The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.
The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.
The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
Alain de Botton
One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
Alain de Botton
Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the judging process, lending legitimacy to theidea that themainstream value system may unfairly consign some people to disgrace and others to respectability.
It’s clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.
There’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.
Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.