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Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.

Alain de Botton

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Adult Character Develop Parent Rescue Trait
The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Greatest Speak Without Know Work
Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Capacity Find Intimacy Rather Someone
Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Absolute Afford Desire Grow Relative Something Time Wealth
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Aesthetic Capacity Critical Draw Good Happiness Material Object Satisfy Seem
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
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
Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Dance Forgot Glamorous Insomnia Term Thought
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle
to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Already Behaviour Design Force Mechanism Ourselves Patiently Unlearn
What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anybody Complete Part Small Snob Take Use Vision
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
Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Badly Begin Exceed Fear Finally Nothing
Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Comfortable Do Edge Excite Fulfill Quite Work
Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Civic Duty Frame Glorious Gratitude Make Money Pay Punishment Tax Worthy
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.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Essence Exist Existing Love Perhaps Properly Someone Speak Until

Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.

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Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.

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Popular Authors

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