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A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

Alain de Botton

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
We should read other people’s books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer’s thought that help us to do so.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Help Hope Order Other People Reckless
The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word “luxury.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Age Happiness Luxury Materialistic Reveal Starkly Understanding
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
Once I began to consider everything as being of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Began Consider Everything Interest Object Potential Release Value
If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anticipate Art Besides Forget Inclined Much Perhaps World
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
A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beauty Capable Excite Feature Sense Spectator Successful Work
True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Majority People Reason Respectability Stem
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
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
I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Emotional End Feeling Married People Powerful Uncertain
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
Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Control Crazy Know Maturity Try Under
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
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conducive Conversation Few Internal Journey Mindwive Move Place Plane Ship Train

A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

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A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

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Popular Authors

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