Philosophy for twits
I’ve got nothing original to say, so I’ve just stolen something. I don’t go into twitter very often, but the other day I “followed” Alain de Botton, the pop-philosopher, because two out of about three people I am following do too. He’s got 45,000 followers, so maybe some of you follow yourself, but he’s rather fun. Here are some of his recent tweets. I especially like the last one. (And here is a strange article he wrote on the idea of religion for atheists in the New Statesman.)
We can be sure there is something crucial to address when the idea of being alone has grown truly unbearable.
A devilish relationship exists between the significance of an idea and how nervous the prospect of entertaining it makes us.
To write for a general reader is to ask: how much information does the reader need rather than how much potentially exists.
What is most offensive about militant atheists is their seeming lack of sympathy for desperation. They seem so... un-needy.
Heterosexuality means genuine surprise about whom in one's own gender gets declared attractive by the opposite sex.
A sure sign of having something important to reflect on is a twitchy desire to be manically busy and not alone for a second.
Given the sacrifices they were prepared to endure, writers like Proust or Nietzsche must have understood their greatness quite well.
The Romantic individualism of the modern world where to be 'just like other people' is typically understood as an insult.
In literature, our problem lies squarely with our manner of absorption rather than with the extent of our consumption.
We feel guilty for all that we have not yet read, but overlook how much better read we already are than Augustine or Dante.
Always surprising how many people equate a decline of civilisation with the decline in the correct use of semi colons.
We want two incompatible things of our universities: that they teach us how to make a living - and teach us how to live.
It's always hard to resist the conclusion that those who aren't interested in us are egomaniacs.
It is easiest confidently to seduce those we are least attracted to.
If the food is the most memorable aspect of a dinner party, something has evidently gone wrong.
Ashamed and bemused by our own fragility, we consistently underestimate how anxious everyone else is.