Alain de Botton Quotes

Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.

Poor is the man who desires a lot

He is not poore that hath little, but he that desireth much.

Not he who has little, but he whose wishes more, is poor.

He is not poor that hath not much, but he that craves much.

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.

No man is poor who does not think himself so. But if in a full fortune with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

I have no use for eight houses, 88 cars and 500 suits. I can't eat but one steak at a time. I don't want but one woman. It's silly to have as one's sole object in life just making money, accumulating wealth.

We're working-class people, which means we don't get rich or have maids. Be content with what you are and what you have.

If thou desire not to be poor, desire not to be too rich. He is rich, not that possesses much, but he that covets no more; and he is poor, not that enjoys little, but he that wants too much. The contented mind wants nothing which it hath not; the covetous mind wants, not only what it hath not, but likewise what it hath.

I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live.

If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.

When we are not rich enough to be able to purchase happiness, we must not approach to near and gaze on it in shop windows.

Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our Desires, and the fewer things a Man wishes for, the more easily his Necessities may be supply'd.

If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.

The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less.

The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.

We're surrounded by wonder, and yet we want more, and we want it bigger, faster, louder, better.

To be content with little is hard; to be content with much, impossible.

I had the notion that, OK, so now we have all of this wealth, we could buy not only one expensive car, we could buy all of them. As soon as you realize that you could buy all of them, then none of them are particularly interesting or satisfying.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

I'm not overly greedy.

Our culture highlights the desire to always have more, even when we should be grateful for what we have.

At home, growing up, we weren't really poor. We had everything we needed, we just didn't have what we wanted.