Alain de Botton Quotations | Page 4

...if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you're human.

As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day- to- day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.

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.

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.

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

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.