Alain de Botton Quotes

Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

Under capitalism the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people. But, of course, these motorcars, television sets and refrigerators do not make a man happy. In the instant in which he acquires them, he may feel happier than he did before. But as soon as some of his wishes are satisfied, new wishes spring up. Such is human nature.

Being pretty successful, I can, of course, afford some luxuries. But I realize again and again how we have to disillusion ourselves of the idea that these things are going to give us real satisfaction.

You may get an emotional thrill when you first buy something, but emotions are fickle. You buy that one thing you think will complete your happiness, but after awhile the feeling goes away and you have to go to the next thing. You just keep going from purchase to purchase looking for the one thing that will finally satisfy. But stuff can't satisfy.

We've been sold a concept of joy through advertising. It was somehow sold to us through a Gucci bag or something.

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.

Money gives me pleasure all the time.

The media is convincing people that if you have that 'next thing,' that diamond, the right car, then you'd be happier.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

He is a great simpleton who imagines that the chief power of wealth is to supply wants. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it creates more wants than it supplies.

How many BMWs do you need? How many Rolex watches you gonna wear in your lifetime, for crying out loud? What is it about that kind of desire? I don't understand it.

The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy.

There's nothing wrong with having a desire to want nice things.

They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

There are a lot of people with money, but not with the passion to really go spend it.

The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting.

Our economy is based upon people wanting more; their happiness on wanting less.

Our desires have a way of getting bigger with our incomes.

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.

In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

How many times have you bought something thinking it would make you happy, and found it does not?

Consumerism thrives on emotional voids.

Those who constantly want something will never feel happy.