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Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

Alain de Botton

It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Console Perhaps Sad
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
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
Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Behaviour Forgive Malice Require Sense Sign Suffer
Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, “Don’t you worry about being called names?” retorted, “Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ask Being Insult Marketplace Name Passerby Restore
Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anxiety Apprehend Book Continuous Dangerous Emotion Enjoy Finger Gloom Good
You need a long hard day’s work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Alcohol Day Hard Logic Long Need Reveal
We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Actual Blame Enough Foul Lose Often Temper Those
Must being in love always mean being in pain?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Being Love Must Pain
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
Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conviction Disapproval Face Oppose Philosophy Rational Supply
Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Apprehend Continous Dangerous Enjoy Feel More Otherwise
To one’s enemies: “I hate myself more than you ever could.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Enemy Ever Hate More Myself Own
Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achievement Affection Begin Depend Mature
We don’t really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped … We suffer, therefore we think.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anything Hope Learn Pain Properly Something Suffer
Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Before Blend Define Joy Melancholy Perfection Sadness Sear

Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

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Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

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