English - Writer | December 20, 1969 -
The thing is that love gives us a ringside seat on somebody else's flaws, so of course you're gonna spot some things that kinda need to be mentioned. But often the romantic view is to say, 'If you loved me, you wouldn't criticise me.' Actually, true love is often about trying to teach someone how to be the best version of themselves.
Alain de Botton
LoveTrue LoveRomanticBestLove Is
There's a constant tension between the excitement of new people and security with one person. If you go with excitement, you create chaos; you hurt people. There's jealousy, and it gets very messy. If you have security, it can be boring, and you die inside because of all the opportunities missed.
JealousyPeopleChaosOpportunities
Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws.
GoodRelationshipAchievementPartner
A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, concerts and lectures. Yet you can partake of all these experiences and never say hello to anyone new. And one of the things that all religions do is take groups of strangers into a space and say it is OK to talk to each other.
SpacePeopleCityYouStrangersNew
Therapy and counseling can do wonderful things for people. But they have emerged so far as what are sometimes called 'cottage industries' - that is, as individuals or small groups offering generally quite expensive services to a few clients.
PeopleSmallSometimesClientsFar
The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We should ask ourselves what it is that we find lovely in them - the visions of friendship, togetherness, repose, or whatever. And then consider what would actually help us find these qualities in our lives.
FriendshipHelpSolutionFindLovely
Work is a way of bringing order to chaos, and there's a basic satisfaction in seeing that we are able to make something a little more coherent by the end of the day.
WorkDayChaosEnd Of The DayEnd
I think of myself as quite a shy person. But when I'm curious about something, I'll go quite far to satisfy my curiosity.
MyselfCuriousCuriosityThinkGo
The romantic person instinctively sees marriage in terms of emotions, but what a couple actually gets up to together over a lifetime has much more in common with the workings of a small business. They must draw up work rosters, clean, chauffeur, cook, fix, throw away, mind, hire, fire, reconcile, and budget.
WorkMarriageBusinessRomanticFire
Used to do a lot of falling in love with people, almost in the street, and imagining that there would be no obstacle to a happy love story other than finding the 'right person'.
LoveHappyPeopleRight PersonStory
Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child's world: the parent.
GoodWordsPainChildParentsWorld
We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich people, we will start to think that to be beautiful and rich is very important - just as in the Middle Ages, people were surrounded by images of religious piety.
BeautifulPeopleStartRichThink
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