Alain de Botton Quotes

And when someone else speaks your name you feel pleased. You feel wanted. You feel there. Alive. Even if they're saying your name with dislike, at least you know you're you, that you exist.

I confess it, I love the camera. When it's not on me, I'm not quite alive.

Fundamentally, we all want the same thing. We want to love. We want to be loved, and we want to matter.

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.

To be human is to be visible.

Only in Relationship can you know yourself, not in abstraction and certainly not in isolation. The movement of behavior is the sure guide to yourself. It's the mirror of your consciousness; this mirror will reveal its content, the images, the attachments, the fears, the loneliness, the joy and sorrow. Poverty lies in running away from this, either in its sublimations or its identities.

To look this way is to see. To see is to have vision. To have vision is to understand. To understand is to know. To know is to become. To become is to live fully. To live fully is to matter. And to matter is to become light. And to become light is to be loved. And to be loved is to burn. And to burn is to exist. Off and on.

They say: 'If a man knew himself, he would know all mankind.' I say: 'If a man loved mankind, he would know something of himself.

They see her differently now, as somebody. And isn't that what everyone wants? To be seen?

I tell, therefore you are.

Knowledge is porportionate to being... You know in virtue of what you are.

To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.

I think technology is us, not something we invented. I think we are more psychic now because we have cell phones and you can look and see who's calling you. When people start seeing technology as us, as humanity, our whole idea of what existence is, is going to shift.

I hope it's enabling me to deal with another human being who's more important to me than I am.

Someone's got to be interested in how I feel, just because I'm here and I'm real.

The very act of questioning whether you exist proves you do, because you must be there for the doubt to be entertained in the first place.

When people say, 'I don't see you enough,' well just because you don't see me don't mean I don't exist, or just 'cause you haven't heard me don't mean I haven't been making noise. But if I keep making noise, you'll pick up.

I'm concerned about the unknowability of other people.

The great mystery of our consciousness is beyond our grasp.

I have found that most of the things I want from living I must get from people.

Isn't it odd that you have to keep proving you're alive?

I love, I love human beings, studying them.

I get mail; therefore I am.

I dream, therefore I exist.