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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

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
We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Demonic Present Secular Society Struggle Unpleasant Virtue
The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Another Disloyalty Everyone Finest Loyalty Monstrous Proof Toward
It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Close Come Find Something Understanding
One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Against Best Disappointment Lot Protection
The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Act Draw Drawer Like Look Object Sense Swiftly
I passionately believe that’s it’s not just what you say that counts, it’s also how you say it – that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Argument Believe Count Critical Manner Passionate Present Success
When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Evaluate Modest Property Repeatedly Scene Urge Value World
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
The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Flawless Mediocrity Object Perspective Thing Throw Wish
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beautiful Like Live Most Perhaps Problematic Receptive Thing
Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

After All Get OK People System Tendency Top Unfortunate
Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Above Creature Descendant Happiness Impossible Longer Minute Worry
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
The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along Difficult Force Greatest Oneself Travel
You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Annoy Heavily Honor Invest Quite Someone Tell

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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