The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake. Alain de Botton More Quotes by Alain de Botton More Quotes From Alain de Botton The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone. Alain de Botton smartphones challenges interesting 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 weakness real may Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough. Alain de Botton lasts enough years We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think. Alain de Botton pain suffering thinking It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness. Alain de Botton giving reality years What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along. Alain de Botton giving-up ambition journey There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life. Alain de Botton work-and-life balance fighting Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that's what we are. Alain de Botton anxiety opposites thinking Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them. Alain de Botton intimacy capacity relationship The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well. Alain de Botton normal people thinking Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver. Alain de Botton anxiety goal promise Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us. Alain de Botton moments reading book Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without. Alain de Botton ignored smell people You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days. Alain de Botton daffodil sunset nice Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. Alain de Botton obvious-things too-late inspirational Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness. Alain de Botton wholeness promise art Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope. Alain de Botton surrender despair events I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living. Alain de Botton excuse perfect jobs Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity. Alain de Botton tools literature littles One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone. Alain de Botton good-relationship capacity
