Previous Quote

Alain de Botton Quotes

Next Quote
Image of the quote is loading... SaveSave The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness

The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness”.

Alain de Botton
Copy LinkCopy Link
Copy QuoteCopy Quote
Copy ImageCopy Image
Download Image of QuoteDownload Image

About The Quote

Related Authors

Related Topics

More Quotes From Alain de Botton

There is an easy way to measure our inner levels of abjectness and friendliness to ourselves: we should examine how well we response to noise.
Alain de Botton
When we suspect that we are appropriate targets for hurt, it does not take much for us to believe that someone or something is out to hurt us
Alain de Botton
Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.
Alain de Botton
Marriage: a deeply peculiar and ultimately unkind thing to inflict on anyone one claims to care for.
Alain de Botton
What we colloquially call 'feeling bored' is just the mind, acting out of a self-preserving reflex, ejecting information it has despaired of knowing where to place.
Alain de Botton
To grow interested in any piece of information, we need somewhere to 'put' it, which means some way of connecting it to an issue we already now how to care about.
Alain de Botton
[T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness.
Alain de Botton
Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things. Maturity is the possession of coping skills: we can take in our stride things that previously would have knocked us off course. We are less fragile, less easily shocked and hence more capable of engaging with situations as they really are
Alain de Botton
Report Quote Report Quote Report Quote Submit Quote Submit Quote Submit Quote