Alain de Botton Quotes

Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one.

Women today are bombarded with so many messages, like we should have Naomi Campbell's body and Madeleine Albright's career.

Maybe something is wrong with me, but I just think I'm normal. I'm not super-skinny but I'm not super-fat. But I don't really care about what other people say.

Women always want to be what they're not: If you're the pretty girl, you want to be the quirky girl. If you're the smart girl, you want to be the pretty girl.

I'm a wonderful disaster. So are you. We're all a mess. We're in this culture that says take this pill and you'll be happy, go on this diet and you'll be thinner, have your teeth whitened, people will love you more.

Even when people are so judgmental about what you wear or your weight you just have to step away and be like, 'I'm a normal, fine human being.'

When Jennifer Lawrence says it's 'dumb' to go hungry to make other people happy, she's saying it with the carefree attitude of a woman who probably will never have to make that choice to conform.

I'd like to grow up and be beautiful. I know it doesn't matter, but it doesn't hurt.

Women have to show that tummy to stay noticed.

It is true that women tend to be more identified with their bodies because in this crazy world, both men and women measure women's value as human beings in relationship to their physical appearance.

I resent that there is an image of perfection that is getting thinner and thinner. I've got a lovely husband and children, and I didn't lose weight to find those things.

Among civilized peoples, especially the very wealthy population of the United States of America, women have become objects of luxury who consume but do not produce.

Since I was, I've had that feeling of, 'Am I enough? Am I worthy? Am I supposed to be here?' And my culture and society is telling me that I'm actually not in a lot of ways - unless I have this amount of money, or I'm in this kind of car and I have this kind of job, or I'm famous, or whatever.

The thing that really matters to me is well-being and happiness. Maybe it comes from knowing people who have tortured themselves trying to meet these strangely narrow and rigorous definitions of what our culture thinks is beautiful.

We try to push such crazy ideals onto young women: the Hollywood version of what they should look like, what they should do, and the kind of Prince Charming they should be looking for. We should just be proud of who we are, because we can't be anybody else. So what's the point of trying?

I am not a beauty queen, and I was not the popular girl in high school.

Our society is constantly creating this framework for girls to feel that their only worth is their appearance, and it's damaging on so many levels to so many people.

I just want to make sure girls know they don't have to carry the weight of achieving nearly impossible standards on their shoulders every day.

I think it frustrates me that so many people have bought into the idea of what we should look like instead of actually giving a crap about everyone around you.

I thought I had to work at someplace everybody's heard of. It was never, 'I'm interested in such and such. I want to work in such and such magazine.' It was like, 'Oh, my G-d, I really need to work for somebody so people will think I'm OK.' So I got a job at 'Popular Mechanics'.

Women often live according to rules they get from magazines or media. For example, if I don't have kids by the age of 30, there must be something wrong with me. Goals are great to have, but having too many expectations won't work, and worse, it will alienate your partner.

It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.

And I can't even go to the grocery store without some ones that's clean and a shirt with a team/It seems we living the American dream but people highest up got the lowest self esteem/The prettiest people do the ugliest things for the road to riches and diamond rings.

I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections. and it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill. I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self, and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help and patience, and a certain difficult repentance long difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.

If one considers how much reason every person has for anxiety and timid self-concealment, and how three-quarters of his energy and goodwill can be paralyzed and made unfruitful by it, one has to be very grateful to fashion