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Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

Alain de Botton

Related Topics

Absolute Afford Desire Grow Relative Something Time Wealth

Bagwalas

Popular Authors

Marilyn Monroe Paulo Coelho Abraham Lincoln C. S. Lewis Khalil Gibran Charlie Chaplin Gautama Buddha Isaac Newton

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Admit Anticipation Fear Inability Leave Lie Memory Position Present Shelter
Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Biscuit Carpet Childhood Day Light Most Photo Smell Store Texture
When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Evaluate Modest Property Repeatedly Scene Urge Value World
Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground of our existence.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Event Existence Fury Great Ground Sense Spring Violate
Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Come Control Despair Hope Suggest Surrender Total
Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Achieve Band Faculty Job Make Narrow Personality Reduce Change Relentless Round
Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anger Bitterness Came Forget
In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Devotion Religion replace Reverence Secular Touchstone World
Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Behaviour Forgive Malice Require Sense Sign Suffer
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
Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn’t know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Believe Dangerous Immediate Invulnerable Reject Ridiculous Sex
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
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver – because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Access Emotion Like Literature Look Range Saver Time Ultimate Waste
You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bash Daffodil Day Have Nice Normal Sunset
Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Ambition Confuse Envy Tangle
Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Better Everyone Few Life People Want

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