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 More Quotes by Alain de Botton More Quotes From Alain de Botton When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often. Alain de Botton motivationmooninspiration The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice. Alain de Botton everydaypracticeideas True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence. Alain de Botton smartphonesdesirelove-is Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand. Alain de Botton takenacceptancewisdom It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety. Alain de Botton motivationcareersinspiration We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us. Alain de Botton crowdsnewspapersstuff A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to. Alain de Botton not-good-enoughworkjobs Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to. Alain de Botton being-alonelonelybook It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things. Alain de Botton receptivebeautiful-thingsbeautiful I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content - a way, to put it in more abstract terms, to think about Fathers without upsetting my respectful memory of my own father. I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals and illustrated manuscripts of the faiths. Alain de Botton giving-upatheistmemories The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along. Alain de Botton difficultyoneself At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality. Alain de Botton frustrationheartlying We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease. Alain de Botton diseaseintelligentinsanity No one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment. Alain de Botton envypainart Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence. Alain de Botton existenceeventsspring As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us. Alain de Botton recordswhat-matterswriting Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet. Alain de Botton smellchildhoodlight The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone. Alain de Botton smartphoneschallengesinteresting One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere. Alain de Botton gratitudegratefulsight The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities. Alain de Botton drawingawarenesslooks
