Alain de Botton Quotes

You like someone, you court each other, you get into a relationship. You're answerable to each other. Whereas, the non-answerability of dating, my God, I don't know if I would ever be able to.

I think if you're in love, you're willing to do anything that comes with it.

All my other relationships with men, there was so much maneuvering and strategic decisions and stuff.

Marriage is a gamble, let's be honest.

Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know.

We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing.

You must have love as the core; it takes courage to be willing to constantly tell the truth to each other and risk letting the relationship go.

To have a relationship that is pure and passionate and beautiful - I think people are scared of having that now. Especially guys.

When you're just shagging girls, you can talk about it, but once it gets real, then you don't.

When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.

Of all the myriad ways we define love, there is perhaps none more honest and powerful than this: Great love is rooted in great partnership.

I think love has something to do with allowing a person you claim to love to enter a larger arena than the one you create for them.

It's interesting when you wind up distilling all your ambitions and your goals and dreams into one single person. It's giving that person a lot of power.

Trust is not about what you can or cannot do in the name of love but who you are and what you choose to reveal as things progress and evolve.

I feel like love is the thing we were created for, yet it's the place we struggle the most.

In finding love, I think it's important to be patient. In being in a relationship, I think it's important to be honest, to communicate, to respect and trust, and to strive to give more than you take.

I am not married yet, but I think ultimately in a good marriage it is the relationship which is the most important thing. It is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong; it is a one plus one equals more than two.

Marriage is a risk; I think it's a great and glorious risk, as long as you embark on the adventure in the same spirit.

Romantic lovers require from each other at least the facade of reason: We desire to be what romantic love makes us appear in the other's eyes. We want to imagine we are deserving of the love we inspire.

They say marriage will change you but it didn't change me. Being in love changed me.

Relationships are beautiful, and it's wonderful to find someone you can spend time with and share your life with. But there's also a lot of pressure attached to that. And I think you can't be in a relationship until you have discovered yourself fully.

You can be committed to somebody because of ego: 'I said I was going to be with this joker for the rest of my life, so I'm just going to do it.' Or you can be committed because you have a deeply rooted connection.

You give up your narcissism, your egotism. That's how you achieve chemistry.

But John Landis wrote a good relationship which is really what the film's about. A very straightforward young woman who's very sure of herself and she meets a young man who needs some taking care of.

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.