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If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

Alain de Botton

It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver – because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Access Emotion Like Literature Look Range Saver Time Ultimate Waste
Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Book Completely Declare Done Finish Car Remain Start
We don’t really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped … We suffer, therefore we think.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anything Hope Learn Pain Properly Something Suffer
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
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
What kills us isn’t one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can’t turn down for fear of disappointing others.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Disappoint Kill Obligation Other Thing Thousand
One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ask Author Book Kind Know Leave One
At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Basic Collision Every Frustration Heart Structure
Differ though we might with Christianity’s view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Community Differ might Need Precise Proactive Religious Soul Thesis
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Normal Very Only People Think Well
Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Capture Choice Every Realistic Feature Given Paint Picture Prominence Reality Represent
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
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

Aircraft Bicycle Exquisite Render Runway Speed Tractor
Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm… it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conscious Contribute Create Enthusiasm Guide Merely More Single
We are not always humiliated by failing; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then do not reach it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achievement Always Fall First Humiliate Invest Price Sense Worth
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

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

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If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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