Quote

The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.

Alain de Botton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alain de Botton
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Sensitivity
Generosity
Envy
Company
Others
Certain
Awakens
May
Excite
People
Competitiveness

More quotes by Alain de Botton

Image
Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.
Alain de Botton
Image
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
Image
Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
Alain de Botton
Image
It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.
Alain de Botton
Image
What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.
Alain de Botton
Image
What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.
Alain de Botton
Image
The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
Alain de Botton
Image
I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
Alain de Botton
Image
There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
Alain de Botton
Image
Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.
Alain de Botton
Image
We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.
Alain de Botton
Image
We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
Alain de Botton
Image
The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.
Alain de Botton
Image
Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.
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
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
Image
The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.
Alain de Botton
Image
We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.
Alain de Botton
Image
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.
Alain de Botton
Image
Memory is... similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
Alain de Botton