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Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.

Alain de Botton

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Advance Alone Better Capacity End Good Guarantor One Relationship
A ‘good job’ can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devote Enough Entire Good Job Life Practically
Differ though we might with Christianity’s view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Community Differ might Need Precise Proactive Religious Soul Thesis
In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn’t worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there’s no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven’t had a good time, “Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?”
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Death Life Reason Successful Tell Work Year
Those who divorce aren’t necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belive Cause Divorce Most Neat Necessary Other Unhappy
Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Drown External Influence Mind Require Satisfy Susceptible Tell Voice
There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devilishly Direct Idea Nervous Prospect Relationship Significance Think
The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Apparently Blunt Connect Esoteric Larger One Question Smaller
A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beauty Capable Excite Feature Sense Spectator Successful Work
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
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
He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bitterness Console Depress Expectation Inspire Love Happy Part Plan Rather
When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Look Moon More Often Perspective Problem Really Small Think
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Embarrassingly Learn never Oneself Some Stupid Thing
Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Career Choice Education Mad Precipitate Ward Write
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle

Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.

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Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.

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