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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

Alain de Botton

A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Build Chain Change Connect Danger Information Necessary Receptivity See Thing Travel
Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anticipation Instrument Memory Selection Similar Simplification
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
Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achievement Affection Begin Depend Mature
The media insists on taking what someone didn’t mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Closer Insist Media On Being Say Truth
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Embarrassingly Learn never Oneself Some Stupid Thing
I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Challenge Communication Feel Great Idea Time
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
Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Control Crazy Know Maturity Try Under
Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Allow Call Continuous Conversation Dead Make Misuse Opportunity Period Presence Rhythm
I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belong Church Music Nice Swallow
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
People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bar Cage Interest People Rattle Really Start
Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Among Habitat Ignore Million People Turn
There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Balance Everything Fight Life Such Thing Unbalance Work
Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Compare Crucial Expectation Keep Mould Other Response Temper World

It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

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It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

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