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I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

Alain de Botton

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Day General Life Optimistic Person Pessimistic Take Terrific Thing

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There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Balance Everything Fight Life Such Thing Unbalance Work
In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devotion Religion replace Reverence Secular Touchstone World
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
Dreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anything Dream never Quite Reveal Somewhere
As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
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Adult Character Develop Parent Rescue Trait
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
Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Agent Ask Change Hope Simply Travel Wiser Wish
Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Alive Fum Good Happy Just Keep Potent Sane Sex Wanted
When work is not going well, it’s useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers – and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.
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Being Business Card Go Remember Useful Well Work
When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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Evaluate Modest Property Repeatedly Scene Urge Value World
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.
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Almost Cause Comic Conviction Frustration Optimistic Origin Rage
The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren’t there. The answers are there in the morning.
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Answer Best Mind Morning Think
What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.
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Anyone Fascinate Marriage Married
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
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Always Attempt Came Out Same Stay Write
Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
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Content Less Perhaps Play Practice Require Well
The more closely we analyze what we consider ‘sexy,’ the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Analyze Clearly Closely Consider Eroticism Excitement Feel More Understand
True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
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Desire Lack Love Presence Smartphone
Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you’re human.
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Benefit Community Compare Interest Media Religious Social
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.
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Beauty Deep External Inward Object Physical Possess Seek Tell Voice
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
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as ‘doing nothing’.
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Blankly Chair Describe Disrespect Doing Gaze Nothing Sit Someone Think Window
One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
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Advance Alone Better Capacity End Good Guarantor One Relationship
We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
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Anyone Aware Capable Disease Instantly Intelligent Love More never Save
Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.
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Apprehend Continous Dangerous Enjoy Feel More Otherwise
Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Make Moment Most Read Right
It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Began Conversation Drunkard Fall Humiliate Public Stranger
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

Great Hate Live Long Themselves

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