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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

…if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends may be equally bloody.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Amorous Beginning Bloody End Equally Love Politics
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
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
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
He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bitterness Console Depress Expectation Inspire Love Happy Part Plan Rather
Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anticipation Instrument Memory Selection Similar Simplification
What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anyone Fascinate Marriage Married
Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Drown External Influence Mind Require Satisfy Susceptible Tell Voice
The media insists on taking what someone didn’t mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Closer Insist Media On Being Say Truth
What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anybody Complete Part Small Snob Take Use Vision
In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn’t worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there’s no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven’t had a good time, “Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?”
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Death Life Reason Successful Tell Work Year
Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

All Round Coax Information Mind Newspaper Out Post Rather Read
Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bad Choice Define Leave might Out Series Show
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
Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anxiety Assuage Beauty Lose Photograph Place Possession Precious Sparkle Take
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

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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