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Memory is... similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.

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
Simplification
Anticipation
Selection
Instrument
Similar
Instruments
Memory
Memories

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The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
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We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
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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.
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One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
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The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word luxury.
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Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.
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The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where ordinary life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.
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One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.
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Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life.
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It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.
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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
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The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.
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Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.
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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion.
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One of our major flaws, and causes of unhappiness, is that we find it hard to take note of appreciate and be grateful for what is always around us. We suffer because we lose sight of the value of what is before us and yearn, often unfairly, for the imagined attraction elsewhere.
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It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living it's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
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Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.
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