Alain de Botton Quotes

Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

I know that everything my dad made me do made me better.

It's a real luxury to be able to develop with your character.

Just as we can learn from our mistakes, we can gain character from our disappointments.

It is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.

I was a very unpleasant young man. If I met the young Ingmar today I'd say, 'You're very talented and I'll try to help you, but I don't want anything else to do with you.

Talents are nurtured best in solitude, But character on life's tempestuous seas!

If you want to be the best salesperson, first you must be the best person.

Every time I'd get a critique or some redirection, I'd always just take it very personally. Now I have no problem with it.

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

I don't have many regrets. I regret mistakes, particularly those that damage other people, and we've all made some of those. But I'm not sad about change.

Life's experiences, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, torturous or excruciatingly wonderful and blissful, you know, season you somehow and you learn from them.

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

I think I have more patience now than I did in the past.

There is nothing I've been through in my life that I regret, or that I would go back and change. I feel like everything that happened - personally and professionally - I went through for a reason, and I learned from those things.

You have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally.

I was a solipsist and a narcissist and much too arrogant. I have a lot more compassion now, but it took a long time.

You know how everyone - there's this maxim that we all become our mother or we all become our parents. And, generally, I really wouldn't mind becoming my mother. I really like her, so I wouldn't mind becoming her. But I definitely need to edit her.

The low points I had all helped make up my character, so I probably wouldn't want to do away with them because I like being flawed and I like having them help me grow and change and become better and stronger.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

I think happiness comes from self-acceptance. We all try different things, and we find some comfortable sense of who we are. We look at our parents and learn and grow and move on. We change.

The biggest lesson I've learned from my children is to look in the mirror at myself, not at them. I've realized that everything I've done has had an impact on them. We have to understand that they are like little paparazzi. They take our picture when we don't want them to and then they show it to us in their behavior.

I had my share of issues, but now, it's something that's made me who I am and no complaints.

Life experiences can, at times, be quite humbling, but you learn from them. But I like the changes in my life and what kind of person they've made me into. I'm very open, not as judgmental as I was in my twenties, and a lot more compassionate.