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Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

Alain de Botton

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
Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Come Control Despair Hope Suggest Surrender Total
After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Age End Less Man More Most Old Pack Should Strive
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
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 dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Care Dream False Idea Identify Make News People
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
…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
Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Confidence Many Maturity Opinion Thing
What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anyone Fascinate Marriage Married
Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anger End Fear Feel Most Receive Remember Weakness
Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Better Everyone Few Life People Want
We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Heart Impress Keep People Place Refuse Special
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
Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Absolute Afford Desire Grow Relative Something Time Wealth
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver – because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Access Emotion Like Literature Look Range Saver Time Ultimate Waste

Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

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Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

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