Alain de Botton Quotes

I like the concept of teenagers and philosophy.

History and philosophy are the two eyes of wisdom. If one of them is missing, then one only has half vision.

What I really love about philosophers and psychologists is that they sound smart.

Like all religions, Reason presents itself as the solution to the problems it has created

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.

I'm a lot more observational than personal in my writing. My writing is mostly a lot of questions without answers.

One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other people's.

Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity.

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.

The point of a philosophical spirit is to rely primarily upon one's own thinking.

Only as an individual can man become a philosopher.

I don't see myself as a philosopher. That's awfully boring.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.

Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

You need philosophy. It sounds a little pompous but I think when you direct a film, the only way to find a response to the questions you keep asking yourself is to have a philosophy.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.

I love to learn, and at some level, there's something to learn from my books. And I love art and philosophy, so there's something philosophical about my fiction.

The first thing you get from the humanities, when they're well taught, is critical thinking. Philosophy in particular can play that role, not just in universities but in schools as well.