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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

Alain de Botton

William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Acute Between Endeavour Expectation Happiness Made Point Relationship
The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
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Destiny Life Long Romantic Stronger
It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming… If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept more graciously the great, unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Defies Human Life Nature Overwhelms Space Spend Time
There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
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Balance Everything Fight Life Such Thing Unbalance Work
The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.
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Challenge Human Interest More Now Smartphone
In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.
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Art Different Help Knowledge Pain People Philosophy Way Word
Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.
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Aesthetic Capacity Critical Draw Good Happiness Material Object Satisfy Seem
Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
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After All Get OK People System Tendency Top Unfortunate
After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.
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Age End Less Man More Most Old Pack Should Strive
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.
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Essence Exist Existing Love Perhaps Properly Someone Speak Until
Cynics are – beneath it all – only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
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Awkward Beneath Cynic High Idealist Standard
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
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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Anticipate Art Besides Forget Inclined Much Perhaps World
Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
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Anger Bitterness Came Forget
As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.
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Built Matter Record Write
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
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Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle
Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
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Enough Everyone Love May Real Strength Test Weakness Wek You
Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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Architect Manipulation Prefer Shy Space Themselves Word
Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
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Capacity Find Intimacy Rather Someone
We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
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Anything Beautiful Difficulty Embarrassed Failure Feel
The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Care Dream False Idea Identify Make News People
Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.
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Along End Get Idea Want Wnough Worse
When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I’m basically the child of Richard Dawkins.
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Basically Child Father People See Someone
Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
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Bad Choice Define Leave might Out Series Show
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.
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Acute Come Define Landscape Longer Place Result Selection Travel
As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Absurd Ail Bring Day Frequent Hurt Light Look Victim Wound
Yet often, they know but just don’t care. So the task of serious journalism isn’t just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Audience Big Compell Truth Vital

A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

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A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

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