Alain de Botton: Frasi in inglese (pagina 2)

“Must being in love always mean being in pain?”

“We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped… We suffer, therefore we think.”

“One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?”

“There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.”

“Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.”

“Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.”

“It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.”

“One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.”

“The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.”

“We should add that it is a privilege to be the recipient of a sulk: it means the other person respects and trusts us enough to think we should understand their unspoken hurt. It is one of the odder gifts of love. Eventually”

“The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.”

“What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others.”

“Few in this world are ever simply nasty; those who hurt us are themselves in pain. The appropriate response is hence never cynicism nor aggression but, at the rare moments one can manage it, always love.”

“Dreams reveal we never quite get 'over' anything: it's all still in there somewhere.”

“Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.”

“Cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards.”

“Marriage: a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully omitted to investigate.”

“In the end, I've found that it doesn't really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won't like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there's always the chance you'll end up thinking they're all right.”

“The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.”