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It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.

Alain de Botton

Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn’t know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Believe Dangerous Immediate Invulnerable Reject Ridiculous Sex
Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Happy Instant Interest Terrible Think Writer
It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Close Come Find Something Understanding
The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Central Conception Emerge Happiness Property Reveal
Literature is the greatest reality simulator – a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Direct Great Literature Machine Put Reality Simulator Witness
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
Not everyone is worth listening to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Everyone Listen Worth
Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along End Get Idea Want Wnough Worse
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Important One Successful Suffer Teach Thing Unexpectedly
Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Believe Feel God Love Music Must Show
Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anyone Bookseller Destination Most Number Talk Valuable
We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like; we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Close Envy Feel Friend Group Member Ourselves Reference
Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Easier Except Happy Learn Less Play Practice Require Unnatural Violin
The good parent: someone who doesn’t mind, for a time, being hated by their children.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Children Good Hate Mind Parent Someone Time
In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belief Complex Evidence Man Oasis Palm Thirsty Tree Water
The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along Difficult Force Greatest Oneself Travel

It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.

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It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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