Quotes from Alain de Botton

Compatibility is an achievement of love, it shouldn't be the precondition of love.

There is no better way of coming to be aware of what one feels oneself than by trying to recreate in oneself what a master has felt.

Romanticism is a philosophy of intuitive agreement. In real love, there is no need tiresomely to articulate or spell things out. When two people belong together, there is simply — at long last — a wondrous reciprocal feeling that both parties see the world in precisely the same way.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.

But reassurance can be the cruelest antidote to anxiety. Our rosy predictions both leave the anxious unprepared for the worst.

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.

There are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force them to eat supper together.

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

Architecture excites our respect to the extent that it surpasses us.

We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.