Alain de Botton

The death of marriage has been announced so often and would seem so normal, in a sense. So what's surprising is the sheer longevity and tenacity of this institution.

We are properly ready for marriage when we are strong enough to embrace a life of frustration.

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.

I do think that travel can be part of a journey of inner maturation, but you've got to do it right.

Travel is a lot like love.

Fantasies can be great, but we shouldn't make the wedding a fantasy, because the wedding is the gateway to married life. It shouldn't be a moment of illusion; it should be a moment of preparation.

I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful.

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.

I see religion as a storehouse of lots of really good ideas that a secular world should look at, raid, and learn from.

Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make.

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.

On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community we live in. We tend to become good or bad depending on the cues sent out within a particular space.

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

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.

Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie Price's philosophy is one of extraordinary confidence. She is remarkable not for her looks or antics but because of her tremendous self-assurance and her unwillingness to be intimidated by criticism or failure.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.

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.