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Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.

Alain de Botton

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
Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Abbreviation Account Artistic Force Involve Reality Serve
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
Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Home Merit Name Occupancy Permanent Speak
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle
Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Content Less Perhaps Play Practice Require Well
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
Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Apprehend Continous Dangerous Enjoy Feel More Otherwise
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Censor Fear Idea People Say Something Stupid
Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conviction Disapproval Face Oppose Philosophy Rational Supply
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 time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Every Time Feel Little Possess Rich Satisfy
At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Basic Collision Every Frustration Heart Structure
As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Absurd Ail Bring Day Frequent Hurt Light Look Victim Wound
One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ask Author Book Kind Know Leave One
The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Care Dream False Idea Identify Make News People

Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.

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Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.

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