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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

My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Attempt Came Out Same Stay Write
Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Emouhj Health Mental Place Safe Settle
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
We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allegiance Desirable Important Mind Need Oppose Shore Site State Version World
The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allow Attractive Most Once Ungrateful
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
An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Argument Attempt Couple Important Introduce Truth
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
It’s as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you’re living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Accept Afford Desire Either Grow Poorer Possess Relative Resource Rich Something Time
Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Hold Inner Promise Wholeness
The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Admit Anticipation Fear Inability Leave Lie Memory Position Present Shelter
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
Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Capacity Find Intimacy Rather Someone
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
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
Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Almost Cause Comic Conviction Frustration Optimistic Origin Rage

What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.

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What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.

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