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It's very hard to respect people on holiday - everybody looks so silly at the beach, it makes you hate humanity - but when you see people at their work they elicit respect, whether it's a mechanic, a stonemason or an accountant.

Alain de Botton

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Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Looks
Beach
Hard
Silly
Work
Respect
People
Humanity
Elicit
Everybody
Accountant
Whether
Accountants
Hate
Mechanic
Makes
Holiday

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I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.
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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?
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It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.
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I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.
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You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.
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If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels.
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The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing country, for only there will it still be made manifest by the full complement of documents, files, veneered desks and cabinets - which convey the strict and inverse relationship between productivity and paperwork.
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When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
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The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.
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Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
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Must being in love always mean being in pain?
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