Quotes from Alain de Botton

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.

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

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

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

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

Parent and child may both love, but - unbeknown to the child - each party is on a different end of the axis. This is why, in adulthood, when we first long for 'love', what we mean is that we want to 'be loved' as we were once loved by a parent.

Love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm.

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

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?