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Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

Alain de Botton

The problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Embed Everyday Find Good Practice Problem
Dreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anything Dream never Quite Reveal Somewhere
Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Apprehend Continous Dangerous Enjoy Feel More Otherwise
There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Emotion Lazy Option Quote
For paranoia about ‘what other people think’ : remember that only some hate, a very few love – and almost all just don’t care.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Almost Care Few Hate Love Paranoia People Remember Think
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
Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Content Less Perhaps Play Practice Require Well
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
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
Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, “Don’t you worry about being called names?” retorted, “Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ask Being Insult Marketplace Name Passerby Restore
We should read other people’s books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer’s thought that help us to do so.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Help Hope Order Other People Reckless
The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bed Destiny Force Life Long Nowhere Often Ourselves Romantic Share Stronger Stumble
We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Biology Bitterness Class Envy Feeling Glacier Movement Physics Wrong
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
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
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
As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Adult Character Develop Parent Rescue Trait
As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers – and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Atheist Believer Non Normal One Religion Thing Try Value
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
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

Day General Life Optimistic Person Pessimistic Take Terrific Thing
Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anticipation Instrument Memory Selection Similar Simplification
Most of us still caged within careers chosen for us by our not entirely worldly 18-22 year old selves.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Cage Career Chosen Entirely Most Old Selve Still
Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belonging Desperate Feeling Lost Much Optimism Reason
Once I began to consider everything as being of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Began Consider Everything Interest Object Potential Release Value
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
Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Event Existence Fury Great Ground Sense Spring Violate
The media insists on taking what someone didn’t mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Closer Insist Media On Being Say Truth

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

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Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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