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Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
– Alain de Botton

Related Quotes:

  1. Judged against eternity, how little of what agitates us makes any difference. – Alain de Botton
  2. Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to. – Alain de Botton
  3. Work begins when the fear of doing nothing at all finally trumps the terror of doing it badly. – Alain de Botton
  4. 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
  5. You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days. – Alain de Botton
  6. Art was the very antithesis of crass moralism. – Alain de Botton
  7. To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one’s ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity. – Alain de Botton
  8. We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble. – Alain de Botton
  9. Maturity’ really means: being very unsurprised by, and calm around, pain and disappointment. – Alain de Botton
  10. I was relying on youth be loyal to the specific variety of compromise and unhappiness, which our hard-won marriage represents. – Alain de Botton
  11. The quickest way to stop noticing something, may be to buy it-”just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her. – Alain de Botton
  12. The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the constraints of reality. – Alain de Botton
  13. It is as if we need to be reminded of convention in order properly to appreciate the wonder of being unguarded… – Alain de Botton
  14. The rich believe that their money will insulate them from setbacks and frustrations, and that’s one of the absurdist expectations of all. – Alain de Botton
  15. As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day. – Alain de Botton
  16. A good half of the art of living is resilience. – Alain de Botton
  17. One cannot read a novel without ascribing to the heroine the traits of the one we love. – Alain de Botton
  18. Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. – Alain de Botton
  19. Importance of the random: keep brushing up against people, books, experiences we don’t yet know what to do with. – Alain de Botton
  20. Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough. – Alain de Botton
  21. Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself. – Alain de Botton
  22. Most business meetings involve one party elaborately suppressing a wish to shout at the other: ‘just give us the money’. – Alain de Botton
  23. Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unf̻ted but life-enhancing thoughts. РAlain de Botton
  24. The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible. – Alain de Botton
  25. 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
  26. Insomnia is his mind’s revenge for all the tricky thoughts he has carefully avoided during the daylight hours. – Alain de Botton
  27. Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude – not a punishment for making money. – Alain de Botton
  28. We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us. – Alain de Botton
  29. The best cure for one’s bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person. – Alain de Botton
  30. Just be yourself’ is about the worst advice you can give some people. – Alain de Botton
  31. Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand. – Alain de Botton
  32. The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent. – Alain de Botton
  33. Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control. – Alain de Botton
  34. Being snappy is a symptom of an argument we forgot to have some way back. – Alain de Botton
  35. The continuing belief that the world is fundamentally just is implied in the very complaint that there has been an injustice. – Alain de Botton
  36. It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. – Alain de Botton
  37. Half the ingratitude and complacency in the world down to how slowly and imperceptibly most good and bad things unfold. – Alain de Botton
  38. We never envy another’s achievement more than when we know very little about how it was attained. – Alain de Botton
  39. The more people you have to ask for permission, the more dangerous a project gets. – Alain de Botton
  40. Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge. – Alain de Botton

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