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We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

Alain de Botton

The best cure for one’s bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Action Another Bad Best Cure Person Tendency
Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Essence Exist Existing Love Perhaps Properly Someone Speak Until
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
The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Affiche Appraisal Attention Congenital Determine Matter People Uncertainty
Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achievement Affection Begin Depend Mature
There is real danger of a disconnect between what’s on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it’s not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Business Card Danger Dep Disconnect Inside
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 only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Depend Happy Look Only Realise Thing Way
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
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
If one felt successful, there’d be so little incentive to be successful.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Felt Incentive Successful
I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Emotional End Feeling Married People Powerful Uncertain
There’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allow Category Enough Help People Themselves Weird Whole
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Matter Much Only People Reputation Seldom Themselves
Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Fera Good Most Origin Think
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
to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Already Behaviour Design Force Mechanism Ourselves Patiently Unlearn
There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Choice Inevitable Long Loss Need Regret Return Time
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
There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Annoy Learn Look Most People Significant Thing
True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Desire Lack Love Presence Smartphone
Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anticipation Instrument Memory Selection Similar Simplification
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
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
There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Acute Come Define Landscape Longer Place Result Selection Travel
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
I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Challenge Communication Feel Great Idea Time

We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

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We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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