QuoteProject
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
Alain De Botton
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Art helps us understand and cope with suffering in a more constructive way.

In this quote, Alain De Botton emphasizes the significant role that art plays in our lives, particularly in how it can provide insights into the human condition, including suffering. Through various forms of artistic expression, we can learn not only to accept suffering as a part of life but also to engage with it in a way that can lead to personal growth and resilience, thus making our experiences with pain more meaningful and manageable.

Themes

ArtSufferingHuman ConditionGrowthResilience

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the therapeutic effects of art, this quote can be used to illustrate how creativity can offer solace.

More from Alain De Botton

It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.
Alain De BottonRead
Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread
Alain De BottonRead
The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.
Alain De BottonRead
Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our own.
Alain De BottonRead
The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.
Alain De BottonRead
It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.
Alain De BottonRead

Similar quotes

I've always wanted to be aware of what's going on around me, and I've wanted to use photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time.
Paul StrandRead
Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.
Lady GagaRead
Art is the daughter of freedom.
Friedrich SchillerRead
The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
Chuck CloseRead
Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance.
Henri MatisseRead
When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art.
John TrudellRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Alain De Botton | QuoteProject