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So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

Alain de Botton

We are not always humiliated by failing; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then do not reach it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achievement Always Fall First Humiliate Invest Price Sense Worth
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle
Not everyone is worth listening to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Everyone Listen Worth
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as ‘doing nothing’.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Blankly Chair Describe Disrespect Doing Gaze Nothing Sit Someone Think Window
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Embarrassingly Learn never Oneself Some Stupid Thing
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
Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Enough Everyone Love May Real Strength Test Weakness Wek You
To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Concern Flourish Listen Love Note Object Ourselves Presence Register Shown View
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
Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along End Get Idea Want Wnough Worse
Cynics are – beneath it all – only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Awkward Beneath Cynic High Idealist Standard
So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ache Belly Complaint Down Ego Fragile Ignore Universe
As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Built Matter Record Write
It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Began Conversation Drunkard Fall Humiliate Public Stranger
It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Acquaintance Acquire Beautiful Dialogue Grief Pain Thing Turn More Value
Which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Childlike Journey Life Nourish Precious Relevant Secular Seem Vulnerable

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

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So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

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