Alain de Botton Quotes

I always tell people there's nothing greater than a crisis to create a breakthrough. Because that's when we breakthrough usually - most people don't proactively breakthrough - they breakthrough because they have to. And the beauty of crisis is it doesn't feel beautiful, is it melts us down. And when you're melted down you can recast your life in a new way.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

...We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. That sounds goody two-shoes, I know, but I believe that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure and time. Less time is crystal. Less than that is coal. Less than that is fossilized leaves. Less than that it's just plain dirt. In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.

The more you get past pain, the more it goes from coal to diamond.

You wouldn't wish hardship on anyone, but when it comes, you would be crazy not to see the huge growth that will come from it.

A lot of what is most beautiful about the world arises from struggle.

The world helps you to keep evolving and hope it's for better. You have to rise above all the tragedies in life. You have to grow, and if you stop growing, you are old.

If it were not for the bad things that've happened to me, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

A lot of life is about trying to turn bad experiences into something good. Usually if you work at it, you can figure out a way to do it. Even our worst misfortunes are gifts.

The hardest things in my life have made me who I am.

The ups and downs are part of what has made you.

When I reflect on the losses I've experienced, I've come to believe that those experiences were transformative, that they shaped who I am.

Throw dirt on me, and grow a wild flower

Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out. When the great oak is straining in the wind, The boughs drink in new beauty and the trunk Sends down a deeper root on the windward side. Only the soul that knows the mighty grief Can know the mighty rapture, Sorrows come To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

We are only as great as our struggles. We only become who we are in the face of them.

There is a blessing in losing the one we love. It's the blessing of self-transformation. You don't have to who you were anymore. You've struggled. And now you can change. It doesn't mean that bits of that person won't cling to you, they will throughout your life, but they are now subsumed into something greater. That person has given you, in fact, the most important blessing, which is they gave you the blessing of transforming your soul into something better, something more beautiful.

We can decide to let our trials crush us, or we can convert them to new forces of good.

Life never was intended to be easy. Rather, it is a period of proving and growth. It is interwoven with difficulties, challenges, and burdens. We are immersed in a sea of persistent, worldly pressures that could destroy our happiness. Yet these very forces, if squarely faced, provide opportunity for tremendous personal growth and development. The conquering of adversity produces strength of character, forges self-confidence, engenders self-respect, and assures success in righteous endeavor.

Heartbreaks, disappointments and even our own weaknesses can serve as stepping-stones to the second half of life transformation. Failings are the foundation for growth. Those who have fallen, failed or 'gone down' are the only ones who understand 'up.'

Goodness . . . You got to make it out of badness . . . Because there isn't anything else to make it out of.

A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them.

Wanting to change, to improve, a person's situation means offering him, for difficulties in which he is practiced and experienced, other difficulties that will find him perhaps even more bewildered.

Whenever God means to make a man great, he always breaks him in pieces first.

My childhood was quite extreme. Sometimes I was so weak I could not stand up. But now I am so strong. Life is unpredictable

Whatever crisis you are going through, fruit will come from it. Allow the crisis to bring fruit.