Alain De Botton

speaker

1,037 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Jan 2024 last heard 1 Jul

Alain De Botton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Conversations · Special Collection: Alain de Botton on the true hardwork of love and relationships · 22 May 2026 podcast

I want to try that slightly kinky thing where, like, we could invite somebody else to join us, et cetera.

And suddenly your partner is looking really hurt and surprised and ashen.

And you look at them and you think, I love this person.

And you're at a fork in the road.

And one fork goes off to the land of honesty and the other fork goes to the land of love.

And which one are you going to go down?

Well, if you love someone, you're going to go down the land of love and you will –

have to edit yourself.

Look, I think the idea of being fully yourself is a treat that you should probably spare anyone that you really care about because it's quite troubling.

You should edit yourself.

Editing yourself belongs to love.

It's not done out of a desire to lie.

It's done out of a desire to protect and I think ultimately love.

So this is diplomacy, really.

Diplomacy and politeness, which gets a terribly bad name.

The view is, if you're a true lover, don't be polite, just be honest.

Well, you know, we've all been, I think, at times where people have been a little too honest and they felt a little bit grumpy and they just decided to blame us for it.

And you want to go...

Could you be a little touch less honest about this?

I don't need to know everything.

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