Quote

To one's enemies: I hate myself more than you ever could.

Alain de Botton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Enemies
Enemy
Hate
Ever

More quotes by Alain de Botton

Image
Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.
Alain de Botton
Image
If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.
Alain de Botton
Image
We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
Alain de Botton
Image
An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.
Alain de Botton
Image
How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
Alain de Botton
Image
The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.
Alain de Botton
Image
Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
Alain de Botton
Image
The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.
Alain de Botton
Image
Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.
Alain de Botton
Image
I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.
Alain de Botton
Image
In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
Alain de Botton
Image
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
Image
The real issue is not whether baking biscuits is meaningful, but the extent to which the activity can seem to be so after it has been continuously stretched and subdivided across five thousand lives.
Alain de Botton
Image
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
Image
The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
Alain de Botton
Image
Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
Alain de Botton
Image
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.
Alain de Botton
Image
Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence no painting ever captures the whole.
Alain de Botton
Image
as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.
Alain de Botton
Image
It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.
Alain de Botton