Alain de Botton Quotes

To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one’s ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.

Alain de Botton

• Humanity

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Quotes to Explore

• We were both in love with him. I fell out of love with him, but he didn't.

  

  Zsa Zsa Gabor
  • Love
  • For Her
  • Fell

• I am so saddened and grossed out by young women who look like creepy, old aliens because of their new Barbie noses and lips. Is that a smile or a grimace?

  

  Olivia Wilde
  • Women
  • Smile
  • Aliens

• Cooking and eating at home is made even better by the fact that you don't have to worry about driving after a couple of bottles of very nice wine. For me that's the ideal combination: working hard and enjoying the fruits of your labour.

  

  Patrick Duffy
  • Home
  • Nice
  • Couple

• Thou shalt not give birth reluctantly.

  

  Otto Rank
  • Give
  • Birth
  • Shalt

• Acting, believe it or not, can get very self-involved! I feel fortunate to have been able to work on things with people who have a very specific point of view and perspective, and who feel like they're doing something very active.

  

  Adam Driver
  • People
  • Work
  • Believe

• I draw and play the piano badly. But when I'm doing those things, I'm concentrating so hard there's no room for worry. I find that onstage, too.

  

  Eddie Redmayne
  • Worry
  • Doing
  • Find

• If we focus on loving others the way God does, scripture says that we will be fulfilling His whole law.

  

  Victoria Osteen
  • God
  • Law
  • Focus

• I started coming up to New York at age 17. There was a girl I met over the summer somewhere; I was chasing her. I would drive up to D.C., where I had made some friends, which was about four hours away, and we would take the bus up to New York.

  

  Garth Risk Hallberg
  • Up
  • Friends
  • Age

• I've talked to law enforcement officials at the state and local level who say that violence against women is going up. In any case, we think that it's an important issue whether it's going up or not. And we are determined to stop it.

  

  Patricia Ireland
  • Up
  • Important
  • Women

• I work out in a studio. Every day, regardless where I am, at least two hours. I need it. I can't cease it.

  

  Gabriela Sabatini
  • Work
  • Studio

• When I was little, I had concerts on the subway, and old ladies came up to me like, 'You are so good!'

  

  Zara Larsson
  • Up
  • Good
  • You

• Don't compare me to Babe Ruth. God gave me the opportunity and the ability to be here at the right time, at the right moment, just like he gave Babe Ruth when he was playing. I just hope I can keep doing what I've been doing - keep taking care of business.

  

  Sammy Sosa
  • Time
  • God
  • Business

• Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • History
  • Unsuccessful

• We believe that societies and economies only advance as far as individuals are free to carry them forward. And just as freedom cannot exist when people are imprisoned for their political views, true opportunity cannot exist when people are imprisoned by sickness, or hunger, or darkness.

  

  Barack Obama
  • People
  • Believe
  • True

• He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true.

  

  Wendell Phillips
  • Believe
  • True
  • Free

• The young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth.

  

  Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Charity

• Ultimately, I conclude that however we understand existence, what gives meaning to our lives are those things that serve our neurochemically based emotional self-interest in a sustainable way.

  

  Nayef Al-Rodhan
  • Emotional

• Pleasure and love are the pinions of great deeds.

  

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Great

• The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men-were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.

  

  Ambrose Bierce
  • Men
  • Nature
  • Christian

• I had very, very little training in taking an exam to determine a scientist's life in France.

  

  Benoit Mandelbrot
  • Life
  • Training
  • Determine

• I have no idea what advantages I truly get, but I know people talk to me and give me time of day because they like how I look.

  

  Cameron Russell
  • People
  • Time
  • Day

• A Vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put him out of his road he is at a stand. Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force, and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub. (from a letter dated 25 May, 1694)

  

  Isaac Newton
  • Practice
  • Vulgar
  • Mechanick

• If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • Life
  • May
  • Man

• To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one’s ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.

  

  Alain de Botton
  • Humanity