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The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

Alain de Botton

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Advance Alone Better Capacity End Good Guarantor One Relationship
Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allow Call Continuous Conversation Dead Make Misuse Opportunity Period Presence Rhythm
People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bar Cage Interest People Rattle Really Start
What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anyone Fascinate Marriage Married
If one felt successful, there’d be so little incentive to be successful.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Felt Incentive Successful
It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Before Bore Calm Easier Even Good Live Make Perhaps Stay
Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Almost Cause Comic Conviction Frustration Optimistic Origin Rage
It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Acquaintance Acquire Beautiful Dialogue Grief Pain Thing Turn More Value
So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ache Belly Complaint Down Ego Fragile Ignore Universe
Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conscious Employing Less Medium Pay Rather Substitute Supplement Used
Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Essence Exist Existing Love Perhaps Properly Someone Speak Until
Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anger End Fear Feel Most Receive Remember Weakness
These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Activity Elevate Entrepreneur Force Formulation Ide Intent Inventor Vision World
The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Affiche Appraisal Attention Congenital Determine Matter People Uncertainty
The activities of drawing, eating and drinking, all involve assimilations by the self of desirable elements from the world, a transfer of goodness from without to within.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Activity Assimilation Desirable Draw Drink Eat Element Goodness Involve Transfer World
The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Greatest Speak Without Know Work

The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

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The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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