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Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

Alain de Botton

Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Above Creature Descendant Happiness Impossible Longer Minute Worry
Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achieve Band Faculty Job Make Narrow Personality Reduce Change Relentless Round
True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Majority People Reason Respectability Stem
One’s doing well if age improves even slightly one’s capacity to hold on to that vital truism: “This too shall pass.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Age Capacity Do Hold Improve One Pass Shall Slightly
Literature is the greatest reality simulator – a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Direct Great Literature Machine Put Reality Simulator Witness
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Activity Dominate Dynamic Few Happiness Live Paradox Perhaps Quest Search
Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Event Existence Fury Great Ground Sense Spring Violate
One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Appreciate Cause Flaw Grateful Major Unhappiness
To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Concern Flourish Listen Love Note Object Ourselves Presence Register Shown View
There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Emotion Lazy Option Quote
The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bed Destiny Force Life Long Nowhere Often Ourselves Romantic Share Stronger Stumble
The problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Embed Everyday Find Good Practice Problem
You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Annoy Heavily Honor Invest Quite Someone Tell
Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bad Choice Define Leave might Out Series Show
The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along Difficult Force Greatest Oneself Travel
There’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allow Category Enough Help People Themselves Weird Whole

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

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Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

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