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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

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Alain de Botton
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Need
Quite
Unusual
Many
Turns
Acquire
Architectural
Needs
Values
Appreciation
Prerequisites
Things
Pain
Dialogue
Acquaintance
Beautiful
Grief
Buildings
Littles
Touch
Requirements
Little
Value
Aside
Might
Building
Properly

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Year-end financial statements express a truth about office life which is no less irrefutable yet also, in the end, no less irrelevant or irritating than an evolutionary biologist's proud reminder that the purpose of existence lies in the propagation of our genes.
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It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
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A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
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The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.
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A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
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Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.
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