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I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.

Alain de Botton

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
Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Different Everyone Ourselves Return Sense Think
In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devotion Religion replace Reverence Secular Touchstone World
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as ‘doing nothing’.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Blankly Chair Describe Disrespect Doing Gaze Nothing Sit Someone Think Window
William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Acute Between Endeavour Expectation Happiness Made Point Relationship
What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Good Number Oppose People Reason Worry
Not everyone is worth listening to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Everyone Listen Worth
Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Biscuit Carpet Childhood Day Light Most Photo Smell Store Texture
Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Badly Begin Exceed Fear Finally Nothing
A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devote Enough Entire Good Job Life Practically
Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Aesthetic Capacity Critical Draw Good Happiness Material Object Satisfy Seem
We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Crowd Inside Newspaper Raed Stuff Tale Weird
To one’s enemies: “I hate myself more than you ever could.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Enemy Ever Hate More Myself Own
The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Care Dream False Idea Identify Make News People
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
Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Architect Manipulation Prefer Shy Space Themselves Word

I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.

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I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.

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