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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

Alain de Botton

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Biscuit Carpet Childhood Day Light Most Photo Smell Store Texture
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 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
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Activity Dominate Dynamic Few Happiness Live Paradox Perhaps Quest Search
Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Curiosity Distance Extend Huge Outward Picture Question Small Some Time
It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Console Perhaps Sad
In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Different Help Knowledge Pain People Philosophy Way Word
The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Complex Delusion Desert Hallucinate Horizon Need Oasis Prince Princess
The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Answer Best Mind Morning Think
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
…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
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
True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Majority People Reason Respectability Stem
We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Amid Appear Divergent Each Hold Native Ourselves Quality Range Such Uncertainty View
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
The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Dependent Derive Destination Journey Mindset More Pleasure

Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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