One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy. Alain de Botton More Quotes by Alain de Botton More Quotes From Alain de Botton Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval. Alain de Botton hysterical able philosophy It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds to be the purpose of work. Alain de Botton purpose example ordinary It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge. Alain de Botton feelings giving book Someone who has thought rationally and deeply about how the body works is likely to arrive at better ideas about how to be healthy than someone who has followed a hunch. Medicine presupposes a hierarchy between the confusion the layperson will be in about what is wrong with him, and the more accurate knowledge available to doctors reasoning logically. At the heart of Epicureanism is the thought that we are as bad at answering the question "What will make me happy?" as "What will make me healthy?" Our souls do not spell out their troubles. Alain de Botton doctors medicine heart We don't exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand, while to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed; their knowledge and care for us have the power to pull us from our numbness. In small comments, many of them teasing, they reveal they know our foibles and except them and so, in turn, accept that we have a place in the world. Alain de Botton numbness identity world Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them? Alain de Botton remarkable ifs joy Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial. Alain de Botton obstacles financial may There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39 Alain de Botton swiftness one-day inspire By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world. Alain de Botton imagination identity self It is striking how much more seriously we are likely to be taken after we have been dead a few centuries. Alain de Botton has-beens century taken It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others...Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion's questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity. Alain de Botton company-we-keep curiosity expectations Nowhere was the airport's charm more concentrated than on the screens placed at intervals across the terminal which announced, in deliberately workmanlike fonts, the itineraries of aircraft about to take to the skies. These screens implied a feeling of infinite and immediate possibility: they suggested the ease with which we might impulsively approach a ticket desk and, within a few hours, embark for a country where the call to prayer rang out over shuttered whitewashed houses, where we understood nothing of the language and where no one knew our identities. Alain de Botton airports prayer country Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out. Alain de Botton choices might art Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions. Alain de Botton distance curiosity might Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly. Alain de Botton feelings might art The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy. Alain de Botton envy generosity people The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort. Alain de Botton stronger comfort desire A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily. Alain de Botton majority would-be art The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within. Alain de Botton drawing self drinking There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there. Alain de Botton landscape greatness artist
