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The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.

Alain de Botton

The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allow Attractive Most Once Ungrateful
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
Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Every Time Feel Little Possess Rich Satisfy
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
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
Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Capture Choice Every Realistic Feature Given Paint Picture Prominence Reality Represent
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Important One Successful Suffer Teach Thing Unexpectedly
If one felt successful, there’d be so little incentive to be successful.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Felt Incentive Successful
What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beauty Deep External Inward Object Physical Possess Seek Tell Voice
What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Argue Author Focus Idea Make Own Success Sure Want
Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Dance Forgot Glamorous Insomnia Term Thought
Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Confidence Many Maturity Opinion Thing
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
Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Everywhere Get Interest Kind Machine Machismo Opposite Really Sensitive Sweetness
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
Differ though we might with Christianity’s view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Community Differ might Need Precise Proactive Religious Soul Thesis

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.

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The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can’t accept that.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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