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What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

Alain de Botton

Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Make Moment Most Read Right
There is real danger of a disconnect between what’s on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it’s not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Business Card Danger Dep Disconnect Inside
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver – because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Access Emotion Like Literature Look Range Saver Time Ultimate Waste
Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Act Conscious Cynical Draw Money Object Power World
The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Act Draw Drawer Like Look Object Sense Swiftly
Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Happy Instant Interest Terrible Think Writer
When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Evaluate Modest Property Repeatedly Scene Urge Value World
Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm… it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conscious Contribute Create Enthusiasm Guide Merely More Single
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
There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Emotion Lazy Option Quote
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
The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belief Implication Merit Problem Really Society Top
Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belonging Desperate Feeling Lost Much Optimism Reason
The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Awaken Certain Company Competitiveness Excite Generously People Sensitivity
The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Another Disloyalty Everyone Finest Loyalty Monstrous Proof Toward
Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Career Choice Education Mad Precipitate Ward Write

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

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What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

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