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There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

Alain de Botton

The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Flawless Mediocrity Object Perspective Thing Throw Wish
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
The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Mimic Mind Paralyse Properly Recusant Suppose Think
What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Suppose Think
The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Complex Delusion Desert Hallucinate Horizon Need Oasis Prince Princess
We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Angry Cease Hopeful Once
A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Archive Enough Ordinary Strive Virtuous Wisdom
True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Majority People Reason Respectability Stem
Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone – and finding that that’s ok with them.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Capacity Find Intimacy Rather Someone
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
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
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
There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Emotion Lazy Option Quote
Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anticipation Instrument Memory Selection Similar Simplification
to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Already Behaviour Design Force Mechanism Ourselves Patiently Unlearn
Newspapers are being read all around. The point is not, of course, to glean new information, but rather to coax the mind out of its sleep-induced introspective temper.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

All Round Coax Information Mind Newspaper Out Post Rather Read

There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

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There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

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Popular Authors

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