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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

We need objects to remind us of the commitments we’ve made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we’re in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Carpet Commitment Freedom Impulsive Need Object Remind
Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bad Choice Define Leave might Out Series Show
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
Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Happy Instant Interest Terrible Think Writer
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

Anxiety Assuage Beauty Lose Photograph Place Possession Precious Sparkle Take
The very act of drawing an object, however badly, swiftly takes the drawer from a woolly sense of what the object looks like to a precise awareness of its component parts and particularities.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Act Draw Drawer Like Look Object Sense Swiftly
Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Confidence Many Maturity Opinion Thing
I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Actual Excuse Fantasies Job Learn Live Perfect Relationship
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
What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Good Number Oppose People Reason Worry
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
There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Choice Inevitable Long Loss Need Regret Return Time
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
What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Argue Author Focus Idea Make Own Success Sure Want
One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Against Best Disappointment Lot Protection
I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Day General Life Optimistic Person Pessimistic Take Terrific Thing

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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