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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

Alain de Botton

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belief Implication Merit Problem Really Society Top
Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Act Best Most Revenge Victory Way
We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Compensate Home Much Need Physical Psychological Vulnerability
Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Mauch Sign Taken Understand Understood
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
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
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
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
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
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
The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Challenge Human Interest More Now Smartphone
The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beautiful Cry Expect Film Moment More Thing
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Age End Less Man More Most Old Pack Should Strive
It’s as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you’re living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Accept Afford Desire Either Grow Poorer Possess Relative Resource Rich Something Time
Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anger End Fear Feel Most Receive Remember Weakness
How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Accept Generous Gift never Offer People

Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

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Popular Authors

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