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It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

Alain de Botton

To one’s enemies: “I hate myself more than you ever could.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Enemy Ever Hate More Myself Own
In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belief Complex Evidence Man Oasis Palm Thirsty Tree Water
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
You need a long hard day’s work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Alcohol Day Hard Logic Long Need Reveal
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
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
These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Activity Elevate Entrepreneur Force Formulation Ide Intent Inventor Vision World
Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belonging Desperate Feeling Lost Much Optimism Reason
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
Endeavoring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us, just as trying to sleep with someone may be the bluntest response to a feeling of love.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beautiful Deal Endeavor Feeling Long Love Purchase Response Something Think Way
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
It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Began Conversation Drunkard Fall Humiliate Public Stranger
Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Come Control Despair Hope Suggest Surrender Total
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
One’s doing well if age improves even slightly one’s capacity to hold on to that vital truism: “This too shall pass.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Age Capacity Do Hold Improve One Pass Shall Slightly
Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Before Blend Define Joy Melancholy Perfection Sadness Sear

It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

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It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.

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Popular Authors

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