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
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Literature provides insights into a multitude of human experiences and emotions, saving us time by allowing us to learn vicariously.
In this quote, Alain De Botton emphasizes the value of literature as a powerful tool for understanding the human experience. He suggests that while it may appear that reading is a leisurely activity that consumes time, it actually serves as a profound economy of experience. Literature allows us to access diverse emotions and situations that would otherwise require a lifetime of direct experience, effectively acting as a simulator for reality that expands our understanding of the world and ourselves.
Themes
LiteratureExperienceEmotionsTime-SaverEducation
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the importance of reading in schools, one could use this quote to highlight how literature enriches students' lives.
More from Alain De Botton
All quotes →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
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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.
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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.
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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
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