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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 greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along Difficult Force Greatest Oneself Travel
William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Acute Between Endeavour Expectation Happiness Made Point Relationship
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
We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Biology Bitterness Class Envy Feeling Glacier Movement Physics Wrong
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
The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Dependent Derive Destination Journey Mindset More Pleasure
Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anyone Bookseller Destination Most Number Talk Valuable
We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Anyone Aware Capable Disease Instantly Intelligent Love More never Save
Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Accumpilate Inform Intuition Judgement Real Time Unconscious
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
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
Differ though we might with Christianity’s view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Community Differ might Need Precise Proactive Religious Soul Thesis
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Always Attempt Came Out Same Stay Write
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Important One Successful Suffer Teach Thing Unexpectedly
People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Gym Need People Readily Resist Some Work
The problem isn’t so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Embed Everyday Find Good Practice Problem
The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Belief Implication Merit Problem Really Society Top
Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Aesthetic Capacity Critical Draw Good Happiness Material Object Satisfy Seem
The longing for a destiny is no nowhere stronger than in our romantic life. All too often forced to share our bed with those who cannot fathom our soul, can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Bed Destiny Force Life Long Nowhere Often Ourselves Romantic Share Stronger Stumble
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
As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers – and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Atheist Believer Non Normal One Religion Thing Try Value
The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other’s smartphone.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Challenge Interest Modern More Other Prove Relationship Smartphone
Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Before Blend Define Joy Melancholy Perfection Sadness Sear
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Beautiful Like Live Most Perhaps Problematic Receptive Thing
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
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
An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Argument Attempt Couple Important Introduce Truth

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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