Quotes from Alain de Botton

We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.

I will never be able to do or be everything you want, nor vice versa, but I'd like to think we can be the sort of people who will dare to tell each other who we really are. The alternative is silence and lies, which are the real enemies of love.

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.

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. Do you love me stripped of everything that might be lost, for only the things I will have for ever?

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

Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.

Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.

The quickest way to stop noticing something, may be to buy it—just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her.

As victims of hurt, we frequently don't bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word luxury.

Nature's kind trick is to make everything happen so slowly that we don't get as scared as we should.